Present Status and Prospects of JAXA's Research on Future Space Transportation System

A fully-reusable, two-stage system composed of a winged booster vehicle and a winged orbiter vehicle has been studied as a far-term goal in JAXA. The objective of this study is to clarify technology goals. Research activities to develop key technologies have been conducted in parallel with the concept study. The research topics include small flight test projects for advanced guidance and control algorithms, which have been cooperatively conducted by some universities and JAXA. This paper also describes flight demonstration plans.