Arc
Overview
A fully reusable lifting-body reentry vehicle, roughly four feet wide and eight feet tall, that stays on orbit as a functioning satellite for up to five years holding about 500 lb of cargo, then deorbits on command. Control flaps, attitude-control thrusters, and a deorbit engine steer it through a Mach 20-plus reentry with more than 1,000 km of cross-range, and an autonomously guided parachute puts it down within about 50 feet of a target on unprepared ground. Non-toxic propellants let crews approach it as soon as it lands, and it can also capture and deploy assets and rendezvous with other spacecraft while on orbit.
Full-scale structural development unit built, mission profile complete, dozens of drop tests flown, NASA working the thermal protection system; first orbital mission targeted 2026