Posted by Ray Katz in current, moon
Romanian group plans suborbital flight
ARCA, a Romanian space group, is planning to launch that country’s first spaceflight next month. Interesting plan…but call me “dubious.”
Romanian space flight: an absurd dream, or an amazing reality? Find out next month.
As a competitor in the X-Prize, this same group failed to launch anything.
Still, ARCA is now a competitor in Google’s contest to send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon.
Plans for the October flight calls for the vehicle (strangely called “Helen”) to be lifted aloft by balloon from a ship in the Black Sea. After being brought to the designated height, the engines fire and the spacecraft is blasted into suborbital space. Helen lands in the ocean using a parachute-slowed splashdown.
A simulated view of the flight is available on YouTube.
