Boeing and the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are collaborating to design, build and test a technology demonstration vehicle for the Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) programme.

This will be an autonomous, re-usable spaceplane capable of carrying a small expendable upper stage to launch small (1,361kg) satellites into low Earth orbit. Boeing and DARPA will jointly invest in the development.

Once the spaceplane — called Phantom Express — reaches the edge of space, it would deploy the second stage and return to Earth, landing on a runway to be prepared for its next flight by applying operation and maintenance principles similar to modern aircraft.

Darryl Davis, president of Boeing’s Phantom Works, said: “Phantom Express is designed to transform the satellite launch process as we know it today, creating a new on-demand space-launch capability that can be achieved more affordably and with less risk.”

The Aerojet Rocketdyne AR-22 engine, a version of the ‘legacy’ Space Shuttle main engine, would power the spaceplane. Designed to be re-usable, it operates using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen fuel.

Phantom Express would offer an advanced airframe design, as well as third-generation thermal protection to create a vehicle capable of “flying at high velocity while carrying a smaller and more-affordable expendable upper stage to achieve the mission objectives”.

In the test phase of the programme, Boeing and DARPA plan to conduct a series of 10 flights over 10 days.