Black horse is a winged, reusable, low cost, SSTO rocket design for carrying a payload of a single person into orbit. It is intended mainly for military use.

The concept is that the aircraft takes off with practically no fuel, but in a largely conventional way, albeit using a rocket engine.

At reasonably high altitude it does a mid-air refueling exercise, much like conventional military aircraft routinely do, and then disconnects and goes for orbit. The fuel of choice for this is hydrogen peroxide and kerosene; the non cryogenic nature is intended to reduce costs.

The advantage of this scheme is that the takeoff weight is low, so undercarriage and structural requirements are much reduced, and the fuel needed to get to orbit is collected at altitude hence improving safety on the ground and reducing the fuel required to lift it (it would be lifted by the tanker- jet engines are more efficient within the atmosphere).

The reentry employs a lifting body approach; but the landing is unpowered; the vehicle gains speed too fast to leave a rocket engine running during landing. However, lighting a rocket if the vehicle needs to go around may be possible.

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