Multi-Role Recovery Capsule

British manned spacecraft. Study 1987. Britain was the only European Space Agency member opposed to ESA's ambitious man-in-space plan, and the British conservative government refused to approve the November 1987 plan.

However, the British aerospace industry did propose some interesting alternatives, such as the $2-billion 'Multi-Role Recovery Capsule'.

British Aerospace Ltd. (BAe) regarded the French Hermes mini-Shuttle as too expensive and complicated. Instead, they felt a simple crew capsule would make more sense as an 8-man 'lifeboat' for Space Station Freedom (NASA issued a competitive request for proposals in late 1987). MRC was to be launched on the existing Ariane-40 rocket and the capsule could be flown manned or unmanned, for sensitive microgravity experiments in orbit.

Article by Marcus Lindroos

Unit Cost $: 183.000 million. Crew Size: 4. RCS total impulse: 2,142 kgf-sec. Spacecraft delta v: 157 m/s (515 ft/sec). Electric System: 84.00 kWh. Electric System: 0.70 average kW.