German space researchers reboot effort to launch hypersonic space plane

The Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Germany's aerospace research center, has renewed decade-old plans for a suborbital passenger space plane that could fly from Europe to Australia in under 90 minutes. The rocket-powered SpaceLiner, originally conceptualized as a 50-passenger hypersonic airliner, has now been given new urgency and direction with a roadmap for flights within the next 20 years, SpaceLiner project lead Martin Sippel told Aviation Week at last month's American Institute of Aerodynamics and Astronautics' Space Planes and Hypersonics Conference in Glasgow. Sippel spoke at the conference, presenting on SpaceLiner's technical progress and the program's mission definition—which now includes potentially delivering satellites and other payloads to space.