Home reports air The Mira spaceplane has successfully completed its first flight

The Mira spaceplane has successfully completed its first flight

November 3, 2023

The startup Polaris Spaceplanes successfully carried out the first flight from Peenemünde airfield with the demonstrator Mira. According to a statement from the company, the turbine-powered spaceplane covered a distance of nine kilometers in about 2.5 minutes. The main task of MIRA is the flight testing of a linear aerospike rocket engine on behalf of the Bundeswehr (ESuTreported). The first flight test should be carried out with turbine propulsion, while the aerospike flight test will follow by the end of this year.

According to the description of Polaris, Mira is the fifth demonstrator in the Polaris fleet and at the same time the last demonstrator on the way to the spaceplane. Mira is 4.3 m long and has a wing area of 5.2 m². The nominal takeoff mass is 155 kg with turbines only and 210 kg with the rocket propulsion system installed. Due to the high take-off speeds of 180km/h (turbines only) and 209km/h (with rocket propulsion), the company developed a specially made landing gear that worked perfectly on the first flight.

Mira is approved for BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line Of Sight) operations. The initial telemetry set allows the vehicle to operate up to 20 km from the ground station. For safety reasons, a fully redundant flight abort system (FTS) was installed.

According to Polaris, the flight took place in 260 km² of restricted airspace (ED-R), which was made available by DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH for Polaris flight testing over the Baltic Sea. The necessary operating license had only arrived at Polaris one day before the first flight.

Editorial staff / gwh

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