Spacebus

Spacebus is a satellite bus produced at the Cannes Mandelieu Space Center in France by Thales Alenia Space. Spacebuses are typically used for geostationary communications satellites, and seventy-four have been launched since development started in the 1980s. Spacebus was originally produced by Aérospatiale and later passed to Alcatel Alenia Space. In 2006, it was sold to Thales Group as Thales Alenia Space.

The first Spacebus satellite, Arabsat-1A, was launched in 1985. Since then, seventy-four have been launched, with one more completed, and six outstanding orders. The launch of the 50th Spacebus satellite, Star One C1, occurred in November 2007. It was a Spacebus 3000B3, launched by an Ariane 5 rocket flying from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana.

Several variants have been built: the early Spacebus 100 and Spacebus 300; followed by the Spacebus 2000, optimised for launch on the Ariane 4 carrier rocket; and the subsequent modular Spacebus 3000 and 4000 series, designed for use with the Ariane 5 rocket.

Bristol Spaceplanes

Bristol Spaceplanes (BSP) is a British aerospace company based in Bristol, England, who have designed a number of spaceplanes with sub-orbital and orbital capabilities. The company's stated goal is "to realise low-cost access to space", primarily through reusable launch vehicles, claiming the cost of human space travel has the potential to be reduced by a factor of 1,000.

History

The company was founded in 1991 by David Ashford and has received three feasibility grants in 1993, 2003 and 2011 for the Ascender and Spacecab projects. A scaled down radio-controlled version of the Ascender spaceplane was successfully flown in 1998.

In September 2014 the firm launched a crowdfunding campaign to aid in the development of Ascender, aiming to raise £150,000.

In late 2014, the company was conducting bench testing of rocket engine designs for Ascender and is seeking funding to build a working model via crowdfunding.

Throughout the lifetime of the company David Ashford has released a number of published books and papers based around the Aerospace industry and the exploration of Space.