SpaceLiner Cabin Escape System Design and Simulation of Emergency Separation from its Winged Stage

Abstract

The SpaceLiner is a visionary concept of a hypersonic passenger transportation system with two parallel winged stages based on rocket propulsion. This fully reusable system has been studied by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) for over a decade and has entered its project phase A in 2017. Since it is supposed to transport up to 50 passengers on suborbital trajectories, high standards for safety and reliability have to be applied to this system. Hence, an emergency capsule (SpaceLiner Capsule) accommodating the passengers is foreseen that shall safely eject from the SpaceLiner passenger stage in case of a critical emergency. This paper focuses on the separation process and investigates the baseline capsule ejection procedure such as the cabin and separation motor design. Furthermore, the status and recent developments of the SpaceLiner are presented.