Overview of the CALLISTO Project

Abstract

This paper describes an overview of the technology demonstration project called CALLISTO. JAXA, CNES, and DLR, based on equal partnership, have jointly performed system and project definition activities for a scaled reusable vertical take-off and vertical landing (VTVL) demonstrator vehicle called CALLISTO. The objective of the CALLISTO project is to obtain the data of flights and ground operations to verify the feasibility and potential interest of a future reusable VTVL first stage. The overall goal is to demonstrate the capability to recover a vehicle in toss-back (or boostback) and vertical-landing modes as well as turnaround operations linked to refurbishment and reuse. An overview of the project is given on mission requirements, project organization, development and test plan, vehicle, and mission profile in the present paper.