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About STS
Space Tourism Society is the biggest and most established space tourism organization in the world, with chapters around the world in the United States of America, United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, Germany, Holland, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, and in Malaysia, its chapter is officially known as, Space Tourism Society Malaysia Chapter (STS-MC).
About STS-MC
Space Tourism Society Malaysia Chapter (STS-MC) is a chapter of Space Tourism Society, a not-for-profit organization registered in the State of California, United States of America in 1995. The chapter was registered in the State of Selangor, Malaysia in 2011. At the present time STS-MC is a very active and an established chapter of the organization with a commercial project, which is the development of a spaceport in Malaysia, known as Spaceport Malaysia.
Spaceport Malaysia will be a regional center for suborbital spaceplane operation for space tourism and suborbital research, commercial zero gravity flights, center for research and development in rocket propulsion and spaceplane development and an aerospace themed education and entertainment destination.
STS-MC also runs its own suborbital spaceplane research and development program, called M-R2D2 (Malaysian Research for Rocketplane Design & Development) in partnership with Swiss Propulsion Laboratory of Switzerland and Talis Enterprise of Germany. The program has produced several conceptual designs of VTOL (vertical take-off & landing) capable suborbital vehicles. The most potential concepts are Langkasa 2 and Langkasa SOLVES.
Langkasa 2 is small VTOL suborbital spaceplane carrying 2 passengers (with a pilot) or 3 passengers (with auto-pilot) to 100km from sea level. It pioneers the idea of suborbital spaceplane with a small turbofan and a rocket engine positioned in tandem (centerline thrust configuration), a pair of vectoring nozzles, a lift fan powered by the same turbofan that provide the jet thrust and inflight refuelling capability for multiple rocket climb.
Langkasa SOLVES (suborbital low cost & low risk vehicle to the edge of space) is small VTOL suborbital vehicle carrying 3 passengers (with a pilot) or 4 passengers (with auto-pilot) to 80km from sea level. It pioneers the idea of VPR (vertically passive rotating) wings, that will be extended tangentially to the fuselage and rotate passively and small electric propulsion with vectoring nozzle to enable precise, smooth and safe vertical descend and landing of the vehicle.
Both concepts are being studied and promoted because STS-MC foresee that in the era of matured space tourism, suborbital tourism will be offered with more creativity but simplicity. Such concepts as Langkasa 2 and Langkasa SOLVES enable creative but simple operation from spacepad (pad for VTOL space vehicle similar to helipad) aboard a luxury superyacht, on top of a tower at a city center or at a remote exotic location without runway. Such operations will have advantages over current conventional suborbital operations because they will be more adventurous and exciting (operation aboard luxury superyacht & at remote exotic location) and simple (operation at city center tower). |
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