After IXV separates from Vega, around 18 minutes after launch, experts not only in French Guiana but also in Europe, Africa and on a recovery ship in the Pacific will be responsible for the ...

ESA’s IXV flew a flawless re-entry and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean just west of the Galapagos islands. Credit: ESA TURIN, Italy – A European spaceplane technology demonstrator was ...

The unmanned space plane, called the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV), is slated to blast off Wednesday (Feb. 11) at 8 a.m. EST (1300 GMT) from French Guiana.

The IXV is an Italian-led project within Esa. The vehicle is 5m long and and weighs almost two tonnes Europe is all set to launch its mini "spaceplane" demonstrator. The unmanned Intermediate ...

European Space Agency's IXV Space Plane Prototype completed its suborbital flight and was recovered from the Pacific Ocean on Feb. 11, 2015. Here, ESA personnel celebrate at Europe's Spaceport in ...

Giorgio Tumino, IXV Programme Manager, runs the project: “The objective of the mission of the IXV is to master all those grey areas that we don’t know about atmospheric re-entry,” he says.

The IXV doesn’t have wings, but its aerodynamic shape gives it some lift, and two horizontal flaps extending from the back actually let it steer inside an atmosphere a little.

The IXV is a project of the European Space Agency that aims to develop an autonomous atmospheric re-entry system. A flight model will be launched on a Vega rocket next year and will have to ...

ESA's uncrewed Intermediate Experimental Vehicle, or IXV, will lift off at 8 a.m. ET aboard a rocket before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean around 100 minutes later. The car-sized IXV, which ...

Europe is all set to launch its mini "spaceplane" demonstrator. The unmanned Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) will launch atop a Vega rocket from South America, fly east around the globe ...