Clarke Lindsey over at Hobby Space points to progress that PlanetSpace is making on flying sub-scale prototypes of its Silver Dart vehicle. The Silver what vehicle, you ask? A brief description from the website:
The Silver Dart is an autonomous and flexible hypersonic glider designed to operate as an orbital vehicle. It extends the capabilities of the booster to provide access to LEO. It is designed to double as an unmanned or manned spacecraft and can provide for a long duration platform in orbit.
The company is taking its first steps on flying these vehicles later in 2009:
To explore the flight characteristics of the lifting body design two matching ΒΌ scale Silver Darts will fly this year as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) with Canadian pilots at the controls.
Our 0.25 Silver Darts are turbojet powered all metal construction research vehicles flown from a mobile flight deck located in a launch control trailer. Each Silver Dart is capable of 300 + knots with retractable custom built undercarriage and flight control system. One Silver Dart, 0.25-B is designed to accommodate rocket propulsion and will test rocket plume and aerodynamic interactions at the base of the vehicle. Both Darts have deployable switchblade wings and will test a variety of airfoil sections and plan-form designs.
Cool stuff. You can read more here.
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