ESA’s IXV Integrated With Vega Launcher

ESA’s IXV unmanned spaceplane is installed inside Vega’s protective fairing at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
The Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle will be launched into a suborbital trajectory and return to Earth as though from a low-orbit mission. For the first time, it will test and qualify European critical reentry technologies in hypersonic flight, descend by parachute and land in the Pacific Ocean to await recovery and analysis.

integration on the Vega launcher, at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, in January 2015. IXV will be launched 340 km into space on top of a Vega rocket, flight VV04, climbing to 412 km before beginning a long glide back through the atmosphere. During the flight, IXV will test the latest technologies and critical systems to help guide the design of future spaceplanes.