Demonstrator-2R

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Demonstrator-2R (also IRDT for Inflatable Re-entry and Descent Technology) is the name of a spacecraft that was developed and manufactured under the leadership of ESA by the European aerospace group EADS and the Russian company NPO Lavochkin . The Russian space agency Roskosmos and the Russian Navy were also involved in this project .

The missile was used to investigate a re-entry method that does not require a heavy heat shield or parachute . It had a mass of 140 kg and, for the first time in space travel, had a pneumatic braking device that is filled with nitrogen shortly before it enters the atmosphere . This device should be reusable and was also intended as an emergency landing capsule and for transporting goods from space to earth.

A test flight took place on October 6, 2005 at 21:30 UTC (according to Moscow time and local time, October 7). The launch took place from a submarine in the Barents Sea with an ICBM of the Wolna type . The landing should take place about 30 minutes later on the Kamchatka Peninsula . In the first phase, telemetry data showed a flight according to plan, but then radio contact was lost.

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