Plasma-hot Space Rider tests for belly and flaps

发布时间：2026-04-28来源：European Space Agency

Flaps for hypersonic heated control

Team placing Space Rider’s reentry module parts inside the plasma wind tunnel

Space Rider’s reentry module is unique as it can generate lift like an aircraft and target a precise landing point – but instead of wings Space Rider’s body itself provides lift.

The Space Rider reentry module has two flaps to steer the spacecraft during reentry, weighing just 10 kg and at just 90 x 70 cm they steer the 3000 kg module as it flies into Earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speeds. Made of the same ISiComp ceramic material the thermal protection is fixed with titanium alloy supports printed in additive layers. They are controlled by the spaceraft’s avionics “brain”.

To test the flaps as if they were in flight, CIRA subjected them to their plasma wind tunnel, the world’s largest. The flaps were hit with an arc jet of gas bombarding them at ten times the speed of sound.

Space Rider has been acing its tests so far, even surviving the conditions of reentry with a purposefully damaged tile – just in case Space Rider were to be hit by a micro-meterorite while in orbit.

More tests await Space Rider’s thermal protection system and guidance system before they are qualified for spaceflight – and reentry.

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