Radian Single Stage to Orbit Space Plane | NextBigFuture.com (2025)

Radian Single Stage to Orbit Space Plane | NextBigFuture.com (1)

by Brian Wang

Radian Aerospace has $31 million of funding to develop a single stage to orbit spaceplane. It will use a 3000 meter long sled to get it up to launch speed. It will deliver 2.27 tons to anywhere on Earth in under one hour. It can land on a regular runway.

The Spaceplane will be about as long as a Boeing 787 and as wide as a 737.

The spaceplane is designed to be fully reusable for up to 100 missions. They plan a 48-hour turnaround time between flights and a 90-minute on-demand launch capability, significantly reducing costs and increasing mission flexibility.

Radian has begun testing a subscale prototype called PFV01, which shares the aerodynamic profile of their AV09 design. Recent taxi tests in Abu Dhabi have validated the company’s aerodynamic analysis and control systems, paving the way for future high-speed tests.

Advanced Materials and Thermal Protection
Radian One will be constructed using carbon matrix composites and features an advanced thermal protection system. This system has undergone testing in partnership with NASA’s Glenn Research Center, ensuring the vehicle can withstand the extreme temperatures of atmospheric reentry.

Propulsion Advancements
The latest design incorporates five rocket engines using methane and liquid oxygen as propellants, an upgrade from the previously planned LOX-kerosene mix. The engines are expected to provide more than 200,000 pounds of thrust each.

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Brian Wang

Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.

Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.

A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.

  1. For a space plane I will use a combination of rocket and ramjet engines. Systems of the two types of engines should be combined wherever it is feasible. The Musk has already shown that steel body is superior to a one made of composite materials.

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  2. Castle Airport has a 2 mile Runway built for B-52s in Central California (Atwater, CA near Merced, CA) could be the first Launch pad with service to Australia 🌏.

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  3. Some ideas I thought of.
    1. Two stage with launching system.
    2.The launching system should be a flock of IC or electric engined driven trucks with scissor jack raised flat roofs on a wheeled frame. When I say flock, I mean they are like individual trucks that operate together. They would drive under the unfueled rocket, raise it up and then it is refueled. Since the launchers flock they could drive in a flocking linear train mode to move to other launch locations on normal roads. The first vehicle navigates and all the rest just follow the leader. Launchers made from standard vehicles engines and frames with added scissor jack, lowering cost.
    3. The first stage is air augmented. Examples are the Soviet Gnom rocket.

    http://www.astronautix.com/g/gnom.html

    The ISP increase is really high. Can be double or more. All the studies I’ve seen show air augmented ducts used as SSTO and negate the idea because carrying the duct to orbit negates the advantages of the duct. But if it was only the first stage…
    4. You could have landing gear in the first and final stage. After the fuel is gone, it’s way lighter.
    5. Use duel Oblique Wings landing. This lowers the amount of area you need for ceramic tiles, lowering weight, yet when slowed in the atmosphere you get high lift to land. Two oblique wings. One front, one back. This means you could do away with the tail, Using flaps and drag to turn. If necessary, maybe add folding winglets on the ends of the wings. Landing gear in the ends of the swinging wing allow them to be protected by the tiles on the way down and keep you from having breaks in the ceramic tiles on the bottom and sides. The ship should be something like a Thames sailing barge on the bottom. Bulbous front end, flat bottom. The structure should be isogrid truss with, importantly, the same size triangle tiles in each segment.

    https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2007/images/IsoTruss_1.jpg

    The truss could be made of flat plates bent with only a change in angle between elements, with a limited number of angled connectors to get curves. All the tiles would be the same triangle shape and size. Having one machine to make all the trusses from flat sheets and tiles all the same size, vastly lowers cost. To vary truss strength, add in parallel metal sheets and make wider on the same machine. Possibly two types of ceramic tiles, one strip that covers the truss and another triangle that fits in between trusses. Over lapping like snake scales is another possibility.
    6. Tanks would be stainless steel, or aluminum if you could keep the heat down. I think it possible that you could wrap the tanks with the isogrid with no connectors. Like a sweater hugs the body. Tighten up the isogrid framework onto the pressurized tanks, or actually the opposite. Pressurize the tanks into the grid.
    7. Have landing gear in the second and first stages allows a partially fueled rocket to hop between airports to move it and the launching trucks, as stated, would road train to the next take off spot. If you could take off and land on interstate highways, this could have significant military utility.
    8. Fuel would be methane and liquid oxygen.
    9. A possible hack would be to have the first stage oblique wings offset and parallel to the fuselage with a tunnel between them. The second stage would ride over the wings forming the duct for air augmentation. A bit tricky to work this out, but it would save weight and the tiles on the second stage would help with the heat. The idea in this case would not be perfection, but to use the leeway of air augmentation to boost ISP for good enough.

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  4. The problem with both starship and radiant one is that they can only land at airports equipped with a Mechazilla in one case and a sled in the other. Otherwise they can’t take off again.

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    • Right in the case of Starship; In fact, if the current design landed without Mechazilla, it would crash, lacking landing gear.

      In the case of Radiant, it does have landing gear, and I expect you could partially refuel it, and fly out under much less power than needed to make orbit, to get to a better equipped airport specifically for it.

      I mean, assuming it gets built, which would really surprise me.

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  5. This concept is ridiculous. SSTO? Where’s the fuel? So there’s a track that maybe gets you up to Mach 1. Okay now what? You still need a mass fraction of something like 90+% even after that boost, assuming chemical propulsion.

    Consider the comparison to the Space Shuttle, because it has similar size, mass, and lift characteristics. The shuttle used extremely efficient hydrolox engines with an Isp of around 400s. Now let’s make the ridiculously generous assumption that the “sled” can totally replace the need for the solid rocket boosters. Well, the shuttle still needed a giant ass fuel tank to get to orbit.

    So again I ask, where’s the fuel? This concept is a scam.

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  6. 2-5 crew for 2270 kg of payload?

    Nor precisely business class, but feasible.

    Albeit for longer orbital operations, they will need more life support than for suborbital, reducing the crew capability maybe to 2.

    Pricey for a 2 person seater.

    Besides there’s the R&D process, which is lengthy and fraught with the risk of RUDs, delays, bankruptcy and defunding. Dangerous waters SpaceX already navigated.

    Alas, I don’t give it many chances to ever see the light.

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  7. 100 times 2.27 tons is 227 tons, which is about one Starship launch (hopefully).
    I doubt this will be anywhere near as cheap as Starship.

    Some scaling up of the spaceplane will probably improve the equation.

    Maybe if they stack two planes and use one as a flyback booster. Then it will effectively be like launching from 10000+ meters at mach 1 with full fuel tanks. They can then use vacuum optimized engines on the spaceplane to further improve efficiency.
    Then ditch the sled because now we have a flying sled 🙂
    I guess Virgin Galactic already tried this but they used turbo fan engines instead of powerful rockets. It sort of worked in the end…

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    • “Maybe if they stack two planes and use one as a flyback booster.”

      The original plan for the Space Shuttle, before they got told “We’re not giving you THAT much money!”

      “I guess Virgin Galactic already tried this but they used turbo fan engines instead of powerful rockets.”

      The problem with VG’s plan is that the rocket equation is exponential, so that if you use staging you want, ideally, for each stage to supply an equal fraction of the delta-V. However, because their air breathing first stage was made with low temperature composites, (Which was Branson’s specialty, after all!) it couldn’t safely exceed the speed of sound, it only contributed a trivial fraction of the delta-V, so the rocket stage still had to do all the work.

      All it was doing, really, was getting the rocket to a convenient launch location, and above some of the atmosphere. An air breathing first stage has to be hypersonic, or else it’s hardly even worth bothering with.

      So, what is the plan here? The added complexity, and weight of the wings, probably means they can’t beat SpaceX on cost per kg to orbit, even if everything works out perfectly.

      I’m guessing that they might have an advantage in getting man rated, though. NASA is really leery of retro-propulsive landings, so they’d go for this in a heartbeat for transporting people, not cargo, to and from orbit.

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        • I personally think that, at this point, if you want to beat SpaceX, you need to do something different than rockets. They’re just too good at rockets to beat them with rockets.

          I guess bureaucrats are something different than rockets, though… Buying bureaucrats seems at present to be the most effective way of beating Musk at his rocketry game…

          I suspect the “next big thing” in space access will be non-rocket. So, what are the non-rocket options?

          1) Mass drivers.

          2) Dynamic structures. Launch loops, orbital fountains, orbital rings. Either directly lifting, or just supporting the top end of an elevator cable.

          3) Tethers, probably rotating.

          4) Really large scale magnetic levitation.

          5) An orbital mass driver to put into orbit things that are just lifted that high by some other means. (Most of the delta V isn’t spent getting above the atmosphere, it’s getting up to orbital velocity.)

          The key thing these all have in common is that they require a LOT of infrastructure, so they’re only economically feasible at high launch rates. Kind of like wagon trains were feasible heading West at low traffic rates, but once there was a lot of traffic, regular trains on rails were cheaper.

          The way I see it, SpaceX gets the price down low enough to drive up the amount of traffic, then the high traffic level makes other approaches to orbit start to be economically feasible.

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          • Yeah. Silly 1g Earth.
            It makes One wonder that space-faring civilizations should have long advanced quite easily on low mass exoplanets. Though I post that significantly lighter planets might have trouble sustaining various atmospheric protections and containment – perhaps another reason to push for Mars/ Moon and inner solar system colonization.

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          • Beamed power could work. Make a simper space plane than the SpaceX second stage.

            But yes the bar to beating SpaceX is very high.

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          • It is certainly true that to beat SpaceX will likely take something other than staged rockets, even fully reusable ones. A truly SSTO with a decent payload mass fraction would be one, since it simplifies operations sufficiently to give it a genuine advantage. I don’t think this concept scratches that itch, even if it worked. The sled brings much of the complexity of a first stage in a TSTO. A genuine SSTO vehicle, which can be maintained and turned around as easily as an aircraft, whether vertically or horizontally launched, is necessary. Moreover it needs to be built to a competitive price too, or else its operational advantages will be swallowed up in repaying the capital costs. One day maybe.

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            • A decent payload fraction with SSTO on Earth probably requires use of nuclear power. Or maybe beamed power.

              If earth didn’t have an atmosphere you could reach LEO with about 9.4 kps of delta V. The theoretical limit for chemical fuels on exhaust velocity is about 5 kps.

              (Delta v)/Exhaust velocity) = ln(Mo/Mf)

              So even in the ideal case, you need about 87% of the total rocket to be fuel at takeoff. And this is using a fluorine based rocket fuel, which isn’t ideal. Using liquid hydrogen, say 92%?

              In the remaining 8% of your starting mass, you need to fit tanks, engine, structure, and payload. And you’re getting a decent payload fraction?

              And remember, that’s neglecting air resistance.

              A REALLY good chemical rocket could, just barely, be SSTO on Earth, but your payload would be negligible, and you’d have no design margins.

              This is why every practical rocket in practice has stages. If Earth were even 10% heavier, I’ve read, chemical rocketry to orbit would simply be impossible.

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              • [ maybe that’s different for comparing with mass freight transport on trains, because the planet’s gravity does not want mass to leave (unless mankind pays a ‘Goddess of Gravity’ a lot of energy equivalent, maybe that’s what a today’s physics knowledge look like for people from a several hundred years distant future, like if we look back in history(?) ), while for trains gravity is (mostly) neutral, if payload mass is moving already?
                Commercial air travel is different from first flights and difficulties for mass space transport does not seem easier (along with current society&infrastructure conversion)?

                maybe it sounds too pessimistic, not discouraging development, but me (generally) expecting energy constraints (without fossil fuel resources, or mass support from ‘all’ citizens)?
                and there’s an advantage with landing on wings for direct air freight to mass customers or special freight (without extended&separate infrastructure (parachutes?, separate freight lander?, but payload towards rockets (what seems being a difficulty with ocean located platforms)?) for to compensate distant landing areas for rockets on landside?

                Given, mankind gets a lot of ‘back to normal’ time for development (what’s a tiny fraction of Earth’s history) and people are convinced by aims of space industry (and maybe that’s an aspect for FAA, without details of decisions and motivations)?

                Best wishes @all ]

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              • Yeah, when I said a true reusable SSTO would be a potential game changer, I was also thinking it would need something other than conventional rocket engines. I’m certain such a technological leap will be possible, but this sled launched shuttle isn’t it.

                SSTO aside, I agree on tethers or a full blown space elevator would be a genuine step change from even SpaceX rockets. A further evolution or two of graphene tape, and then launching a starter elevator on a Starship with enough lifting capacity to lift another tape could ultimately lead to a capable elevator for little more than the cost of the tape material and lift mechanism. Once one has been constructed, more would follow at even lower cost, so it would revolutionise access to space. But a little like Fusion, a suitable material for a space elevator always seems to be a decade or two away.

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                • I really don’t think a classic, non-rotating space elevator is within the reach of material science.

                  In theory you could do it with carbon nanotubes, but at the level of strain required, carbon nanotubes spontaneously break by quantum tunneling, at a high enough rate that the tether wouldn’t last very long. Probably also true of graphene.

                  A rotating skyhook, of the sort that supplies just half the delta V to orbit, on the other hand, just requires the incoming craft to have about 5kms of delta V available to it. That’s actually fairly easy to manage with a winged rocket plane, and the material demands for the tether are reasonable, too.

                  https://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/355Bogar.pdf

                  Although I’m a big fan of dynamic structures like the Lofstrom launch loop.

                  http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-loftstrom-loop-bridge-to-space.html

                  Unfortunately, the rotating tether has a low duty cycle, and the launch loop invests a LOT of infrastructure to only launch 240 tons a day.

                  In terms of potential throughput, the best option might be a long mass driver. In principle its throughput is limited only by the amount of power you want to feed it. And it’s all conveniently accessible for ground maintenance.

  8. Fireball XL-5 !

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  9. This seems more realistic for suborbital transportation than Starship. Being able to glide to a landing instead of belly-flopping into a propulsive landing should be a lot safer for civilian passengers.

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    • While I love the Starship design, I view it as a cargo-only vehicle.
      Which is fine, but it means we’ll need platforms like this, to get people into space, much safer then (I believe) what is possible on the Starship.
      Starship will be capable of launching amazing payloads…but I don’t think one of them will be people. But Elon might prove me wrong.

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      • I think Starship can be safe enough for humans to space, and in-space transport of human crews. I have big questions about it for Mars landing, but hope it’s possible.

        But this spaceplane doesn’t seem a lot better for point to point on Earth – how many 3km launch sled sites would there be? Maybe if the ‘sled’ is a jet-powered aircraft itself, so all you need is a 3km runway, and the ‘sled’ just lands itself after use? Not a lot different from other schemes to piggyback launch spaceplanes, if so.

        Also, I presume it kicks in it’s rockets while it’s still on the ‘sled’, so it’s going to have to fly low over a lot more than 3km before it gets to an altitude that is safe for stuff below its path.

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    • How many passengers can you fit in to a 2.2 ton mas budget? Two? (you need life support and pressurization).

      This misbegotten PPT rocket can put 1-2% of what Starship can put in to orbit. Economically it is dead.

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      • I read that as 2.2 tons plus crew. Kind of like the Shuttles mass budget was excluding crew.

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  10. I see: The first stage is a rocket sled, which connects to hard points instead of the landing gear, allowing the landing gear to be lighter weight, because it doesn’t have to be able to support the craft with full tanks. I see they skipped the traditional track going up the side of Pike’s Peak, though.

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    • “I see they skipped the traditional track going up the side of Pike’s Peak, though.”

      No respect for history. I hope their PPTs are good as that is as close as it will ever come to being built.

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    • It’s still got to be able to abort. Mea I g it’s got to be able to land fueled or to dump it prior to landing.

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