IXV
IXV
The mission
IXV, the ‘Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle’ was a lifting-body spacecraft that proved Europe had all the technology and know-how to send a reusable vehicle to space – and back.
The journey
- Launch: 13:40 GMT (14:40 CET, 10:40 local time) on 11 February 2015
- Launch location: Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana
- Rocket: Vega, flight VV4
- Splashdown: Pacific Ocean
- 100-minute mission
- 25 000 km travelled
- 300 sensors
- 3 km of cables
