Astronomy and Space

HL-42 (spacecraft)

The HL-42 was a proposed scaled-up version of the HL-20 re-usable crewed spaceplane design, which had been developed from 1983 to 1991 at NASA's Langley Research Center but never flown. Like the HL-20 ("Horizontal Lander 20"), the HL-42 would have been launched into low Earth orbit mounted on top of a two-stage expendable rocket. At the end of the mission, it would have re-entered and glided to a runway landing. The HL-42 was suggested as one possible successor to the Space Shuttle in the 1994 NASA Access to Space Study. However, another alternative, a Single-stage-to-orbit design, was chosen for further development, and work on the HL-42 was abandoned.

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See also

• ▸21P/Giacobini–Zinner
• ▸D. B. Cooper
• ▸Discovery and exploration of the Solar System

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