British Aircraft Corporation's MUSTARD Project

摘要

At the beginning of the 1960s Concorde was being developed, military aircraft were already flying at Mach 2 and the space age was in its infancy. In aircraft design the logical next step seemed to be to push on into the hypersonic speed range. What the space business needed was a more economic means of getting to orbit. These two objectives were tackled together at British Aircraft Corporation under the terms of a UK Government Hypersonics Research Contract awarded in 1963. The results were unexpected. No justification could be found for the development of any type of airbreathing hypersonic aircraft. All were simply too expensive to develop and operate. On the other hand a reusable rocket powered space transport system appeared to offer the prospect of much reduced launch costs. MUSTARD (Multi-Unit Space Transport And Recovery Device) was the unique concept that emerged as the most economic space transport system. MUSTARD consisted of three near identical modules with two acting as boosters and the third as the orbiter. This paper traces the origins of the MUSTARD concept and describes its special features.