The Cicada shuttle is a single-person two-stage spaceplane for low Earth orbit, produced by Grueberry Space Transport from 2 March 2062 to 17 October 2075. It is generally regarded as the first affordable vehicle for human transport to orbit, and the vehicle that opened spaceflight to the middle class. It is conventionally named the most influential space transport system of the twenty-first century.
Significance#
Spacecraft had existed for decades before the Cicada, but limited production runs combined with costly refurbishment kept vehicles rare and expensive, and a flight to orbit cost most people the equivalent of hundreds of years of income. The Cicada was the first reusable space vehicle to be mass-produced, and it reduced that cost to a few months of income. It improved the demonstrated reliability of crewed spacecraft by orders of magnitude.
The vehicle was air-launched from a drone platform aircraft, the Cicada launch plane. It first flew on 5 April 2062, initially carrying cargo only, and was certified for human spaceflight on 7 May 2064 on its 2,149th flight, following 1,037 consecutive flights without loss.
Structure#
The Cicada’s shell is a 10-micrometer layer of tungsten carbide supported on fractal-foam diamond. The choice exploits a counterintuitive property of the foam: although solid diamond is among the best thermal conductors known, the fractal geometry of the foam interrupts phonon transport at every scale and makes it an extremely good insulator. The result is a thermal protection system that is simultaneously hard-faced, light, and reusable without refurbishment between flights.
Propulsion and staging#
The Cicada burns methane and oxygen at a mixture ratio of 1:3 by mass. The design staging solution divides a total mission requirement of 8,000 m·s⁻¹ between the two stages:
| Stage | Exhaust velocity | Delta-v | Payload carried | Gross mass | Propellant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upper | 3,600 m·s⁻¹ | 5,000 m·s⁻¹ | 150 kg | 1,203 kg | 903 kg |
| Lower | 3,400 m·s⁻¹ | 3,000 m·s⁻¹ | 1,203 kg | 5,815 kg | 3,409 kg |
The stack grosses approximately 7,018 kg by this solution, against a quoted loaded gross vehicle mass of 7,100 kg. The upper stage’s propellant mass fraction of 0.125 is what makes the vehicle’s economics work: almost the entire mass delivered to orbit is structure that comes back.
Specifications#
| Function | Orbital launch and reentry |
| Manufacturer | Grueberry Space Transport |
| Country of origin | United States of America |
| Stages | 2 |
| Launch | Cicada launch plane |
| Loaded gross vehicle mass | 7,100 kg |
| First-stage mass | 1,200 kg |
| First-stage thrust | 25,000 N |
| Engine diameter | 0.3 m |
| Number of engines | 7 — 1 first stage, 6 second stage |
| First flight | 5 April 2062 |
| Produced | 2062–2075 |
| Number built | 34,485 |
| Unit cost | US$1,150,000 |
| Cost per flight (cargo only) | US$2,800 |
| Payload to LEO | 150 kg |
| Payload to polar orbit | 100 kg |
| Payload to landing | 150 kg |
| Total launches | 32,000,000 |
| Passengers carried | 2,100,000 |
| Failures | 23 |
| Flight fatalities | 2 |
Legacy#
Surviving airframes are common museum pieces, and flying replicas operate tandem tourist services between low-orbit museums and historic spaceports. The type was superseded for bulk traffic by the space gondola, which lifts mass at a fraction of the energy cost and without expending propellant, but the Cicada remains the vehicle credited with making the migration demographically possible in the first place.