Spaceplane Hermes
In the mid 1980s, the French Space Agency, CNES launched a development programme for a manned spaceplane. It was conceived as a supply vehicle for a future European space station and was intended to have provided independent European manned access to space. Aerospatiale and Dassault took part in the tender process with competing designs. The CNES decided to commission the design by Aerospatiale. However, the development costs accelerated, efforts were made to obtain other funding, in particular from German research funds.
In November 1987, the European Space Agency ESA took over the project officially designated as Hermes. The first launch was scheduled for 1998. The glider was designed to be launched into the earth’s orbit on top of an Ariane launcher and the design of the Ariane was modified to take this into account. Hermes was to be fully reusable and carry out up to 30 flights until the first overhaul.
The original plans from 1984 envisaged a crew of six astronauts and transport of a payload weighing up to 4,550 km. However, the Challenger catastrophe in November 1986 forced a rethink. Hermes was then to be equipped with an integrated escape capsule to give the crew a realistic chance of survival in the event of launch accidents. The resulting increase in weight necessitated a substantial reduction in the payload to 3,000 kg and a decrease in the strength of the crew to three astronauts. The option of an open cargo area was also abandoned and with it the possibility of launching satellites into orbit. Later the idea of an escape capsule was replaced in favour of ejector seats.
Coordination with Ariane 5 currently under development also necessitated additional modifications and compromises during the course of ongoing planning and development phases. The entire structure of the spaceplane had to be divided into two modules, contrary to all the original intentions: the actual glider and an expendable aft-mounted docking module that would be jettisoned before returning to the earth’s atmosphere. In November 1990, the four industrial partners involved in the Hermes project - Aerospatiale, Dassault, DASA and Aeritalia – founded Euro Hermespace. But the relentless increases in the costs of the project initially led to a reduction in scale to the unmanned Hermes X-2000 with a view to cooperation between Europe and Russia. One year later, the project had to be abandoned altogether on grounds of cost.
Technical Data
Hermes (1990)
| Type: | Reusable spaceplane for missions close to earth in orbits up to an altitude of 800 km with missions lasting up to 90 days |
| Payload: | 3,000 kg |
| Launch mass: | 23,000 kg |
| Length: | 19.00 m |
| Crew: | 3 persons |
