Congratulations to Boeing for winning phase 2 and 3 of DARPA’s Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program.
The aerospace giant will now have the difficult task of proving that its design, roughly the size of a business jet, can take off vertically like a rocket and return to land on a runway without the need for external boosters while carrying a 3,000 pound payload.
Boeing also has to repeat the feat 10 times in 10 days. First flight is scheduled for 2020.