A single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle reaches orbit from the surface of a body using only propellants and fluids and without expending tanks, engines, or other major hardware. The term usually, but not exclusively, refers to reusable vehicles. To date, no Earth-launched SSTO launch vehicles have ever been flown; orbital launches from Earth have been performed by multi-stage rockets, either fully or partially expendable. The main projected advantage of the SSTO concept is elimination of the hardware replacement inherent in expendable launch systems. However, the non-recurring costs associated with design, development, research and engineering (DDR&E) of reusable SSTO systems are much higher than expendable systems due to the substantial technical challenges of SSTO, assuming that those technical issues can in fact be solved. SSTO vehicles may also require a significantly higher degree of regular maintenance. It is considered to be marginally possible to launch a single-stage-to-orbit chemically fueled spacecraft from Earth. The principal complicating factors for SSTO from Earth are: high orbital velocity of over 7,400 metres per second (27,000 km/h; 17,000 mph); the need to overcome Earth's gravity, especially in the early stages of flight; and flight within Earth's atmosphere, which limits speed in the early stages of flight due to drag, and influences engine performance. Advances in rocketry in the 21st century have resulted in a substantial fall in the cost to launch a kilogram of payload to either low Earth orbit or the International Space Station, reducing the main projected advantage of the SSTO concept. Notable single stage to orbit concepts include Skylon, which used the hybrid-cycle SABRE engine that can use oxygen from the atmosphere when it is at low altitude, and then use onboard liquid oxygen after switching to the closed cycle rocket engine at high altitude, the McDonnell Douglas DC-X, the Lockheed Martin X-33 and VentureStar which was intended to replace the Space Shuttle, and the Roton SSTO, a helicopter-like vehicle. However, despite showing some promise, none of them have come close to achieving orbit yet due to problems with finding a sufficiently efficient propulsion system and discontinued development. Single-stage-to-orbit is much easier to achieve on extraterrestrial bodies that have weaker gravitational fields and lower atmospheric pressure than Earth, such as the Moon and Mars, and has been achieved from the Moon by the Apollo program's Lunar Module, by several robotic spacecraft of the Soviet Luna program, and by China's Chang'e 5 and Chang'e 6 lunar sample return missions.
History
Early concepts
Before the second half of the twentieth century, very little research was conducted into space travel. During the 1960s, some of the first concept designs for this kind of craft began to emerge. One of the earliest SSTO concepts was the expendable One stage Orbital Space Truck (OOST) proposed by Philip Bono, an engineer for Douglas Aircraft Company. A reusable version named ROOST was also proposed. Another early SSTO concept was a reusable launch vehicle named NEXUS which was proposed by Krafft Arnold Ehricke in the early 1960s. It was one of the largest spacecraft ever conceptualized with a diameter of over 50 metres and the capability to lift up to 2000 short tons into Earth orbit, intended for missions to further out locations in the Solar System such as Mars. The North American Air Augmented VTOVL from 1963 was a similarly large craft which would have used ramjets to decrease the liftoff mass of the vehicle by removing the need for large amounts of liquid oxygen while traveling through the atmosphere. From 1965, Robert Salkeld investigated various single stage to orbit winged spaceplane concepts. He proposed a vehicle which would burn hydrocarbon fuel while in the atmosphere and then switch to hydrogen fuel for increasing efficiency once in space. Further examples of Bono's early concepts (prior to the 1990s) which were never constructed include:
ROMBUS (Reusable Orbital Module, Booster, and Utility Shuttle), another design from Philip Bono. This was not technically single stage since it dropped some of its initial hydrogen tanks, but it came very close. Ithacus, an adapted ROMBUS concept which was designed to carry soldiers and military equipment to other continents via a sub-orbital trajectory. Pegasus, another adapted ROMBUS concept designed to carry passengers and payloads long distances in short amounts of time via space. Douglas SASSTO, a 1967 launch vehicle concept. Hyperion, yet another Philip Bono concept which used a sled to build up speed before liftoff to save on the amount of fuel which had to be lifted into the air. Star-raker: In 1979, Rockwell International unveiled a concept for a 100-ton payload heavy-lift multicycle airbreather ramjet/cryogenic rocket engine, horizontal takeoff/horizontal landing single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane named Star-Raker, designed to launch components to a satellites to a facility in a 300 nautical mile Earth orbit to enable the construction of Space-based solar power satellites in geosynchronous orbit. Star-raker would have had 3 x LOX/LH2 rocket engines (based on the SSME) + 10 x turboramjets. Around 1985 the NASP project was intended to launch a scramjet vehicle into orbit, but funding was stopped and the project cancelled. At around the same time, the HOTOL tried to use precooled jet engine technology, but failed to show significant advantages over rocket technology.
DC-X technology
The DC-X, short for Delta Clipper Experimental, was an uncrewed one-third scale vertical takeoff and landing demonstrator for a proposed SSTO. It is one of only a few prototype SSTO vehicles ever built. Several other prototypes were intended, including the DC-X2 (a half-scale prototype) and the DC-Y, a full-scale vehicle which would be capable of single stage insertion into orbit. Neither of these were built, but the project was taken over by NASA in 1995, and they built the DC-XA, an upgraded one-third scale prototype. This vehicle was lost when it landed with only three of its four landing pads deployed, which caused it to tip over on its side and explode. The project has not been continued since.
Roton
From 1999 to 2001 Rotary Rocket attempted to build a SSTO vehicle called the Roton. It received a large amount of media attention and a working sub-scale prototype was completed, but the design was largely impractical.
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