German startup Polaris Spaceplanes has announced that it is moving on to building the next model of its MIRA II ‘spaceplane’ after MIRA I crashed at launch. The craft crashed at 169 kilometres per hour, its airframe irreversibly damaged. But most importantly, the main wedge-air rocket engines were never switched on, so the test failed.
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The creators of MIRA I are so confident in their brainchild, which did not take off, that they are immediately preparing an even larger apparatus for the next tests. Their optimism surprises observers – until now, such systems have never been used outside laboratories. The wedge-air engine is a version of a jet engine that has been ‘turned inside out’. Its jets of red-hot gas stream around a special panel while remaining open on all other sides.
