Having successfully landed a space probe on comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko, the European Space Agency (ESA) is turning its attention closer to home. Today, the ESA launched its new space plane on its very first suborbital test flight. While the flight was only projected to last around 100 minutes, the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) flew almost completely around the planet and reached a maximum altitude of 256 miles (412 kilometres). Not bad for a plane without any wings.

The fully autonomous IXV looks a bit like a smaller, stubby Space Shuttle with the wings sheared off. Instead of relying on wings for lift, it has a full body-lifting design and a pair of flaps toward the rear of the craft for steering in the atmosphere. Its five meters long and has a wingspan (well, width) of 2.2 meters. The underside is covered in protective carbon fiber panels woven into a ceramic matrix. One of the main goals of this test launch is to monitor the performance of these panels during reentry with an array of 300 sensors.

Getting a handle on how the craft performs on reentry is crucial because the IXV will eventually form the heart of Europes planned Program for a Reusable In-Orbit Demonstrator for Europe (PRIDE) system. The space plane would be launched into low-Earth orbit to deposit a satellite or other payload, then descend into the atmosphere for landing on a standard runway. SpaceX is planning a reusable launch system as well, but even its first stage rocket would come back down and land under its own power.

The IXV test began with a launch from French Guiana aboard a Vega rocket. This is a relatively new rocket design with only three launches under its belt. The IXV was planned to separate from the Vega launch vehicle 18 minutes after liftoff at an altitude of 333 kilometers, but the IXV will continue upward in an arc to the maximum altitude of 412 kilometers.

The IXV then flew over the Atlantic Ocean, Europe, and Asia before landing somewhat softly in the Pacific ocean. As the space plane descended, it picked up a tremendous amount of speed, traveling at about 7.5 km/s by the time it reached 120 kilometers above the surface. Thats a fair approximation of reentry speed when coming in from orbit, and should be a good test of the heat tolerance. This was basically the entire point of the test get the IXV up high enough that it falls into the atmosphere at reentry speeds.

It was recovered by a ship after the mission ended, but future versions will obviously shoot for a runway landing. The splashdown is merely a safety precaution for this first flight. The reentry phase of the mission happened entirely over open water, just in case.Check out the launch replay below:

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ESAs wingless space plane successfully performed its first test flight