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Junkers RT8-01 Spacecraft of 1961 from Eugen Saenger Page After WWII in West Germany the Junkers GmbH was founded and became shortly afterwards part of the MBB consortium. In 1961 the Junkers GmbH was engaged in studies about future aerospace transportation researches. Eugen Sanger, who was best known for his WWII spacecraft designs joint the Junkers GmbH and became responsible for the design of orbital spacecraft design at Junkers. One of Eugen Sanger's proposals was the reusable aerospace transporter RT8 usable for transport missions to orbitals of 300km. The RT8 should have had 180 tons of take off weight and a payload of 2,8 tons. For take off of the RT8 classical catapulte launch pads were used. The aerospace transporter itself was launched together with a carrier craft. This carrier craft carried the transporter craft up to 30 km altitude, where both crafts seperated from each other and the transport unit continues its climb to about 300 km above earth, while the carrier craft returned to earth. The transport unit was called HORUS, which means Hypersonic Orbital Upper Stage. The design work of the RT8 was stopped in 1964, however its results were taken over by Eurospace for the developement of the first European spacecraft and later on by DASA for its CARGUS cargo upper stage project. Technical Data:
Links to other pages: Wissensarchiv interesting article about German Space Projects Reichsflugscheiben interesting Saenger illustrations Eugen Saenger Page about Eugen Saenger's Spacecraft Projects |
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