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traveller:spacecraft:tl9:condor

Condor Lifter (50dt)

SSTO are an idea that sounds great in theory, but in practice don't really work. The TL 9 Condor is not an exception to this, and though it can get from ground to orbit and back without staging or refuelling, it does so with very limited capacity for either cargo or passengers.

It is basically a hypersonic delta-wing about 23m long, 37m wide and 4m tall, powered by four aerospike engines which power it from a horizontal take-off all the way up into low orbit. It mostly relies on aerobreaking and gliding to get back down.

For Black Sky Industries, the Condor was an experimental design that proved that it could be done, even though it wasn't really cost efficient to do so.

It can manage about 8km/s, with a take-off acceleration of about 9m/s². It relies on its lifting body to get the extra few km/s needed to reach orbit.

traveller/spacecraft/tl9/condor.txt · Last modified: 2020/02/01 23:09 by sam