Fundamental Technology Systems
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Fundament Technology Systems, Inc. (FTSI) is a small technical services company in Orlando, FL, and was also the 23rd entrant to the Ansari X-Prize competition, which rewarded the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. The FTSI X-Prize contender, Aurora is a vertical launch horizontal landing design with deployable wings for re-entry, glide, and landing. FTS designed its own propulsion system, a throttlable pressure fed kerosene and hydrogen peroxide system.
The seating in Aurora is three in-line with the mission commander pilot forward, MC trainee /co-pilot in the middle, and the mission specialist sitting in the aft third seat. On ascent the Aurora wings are stowed with control provided by 2-D thrust vectoring and RCS thrusters. The fairly high aspect ratio (wings) wings are deployed after apogee at low dynamic pressures, and similar to Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne, Aurora slows quickly given low weight and large aerodynamic area.
The Aurora is also designed to be statically stable in descent but augmented with RCS control until subsonic glide is reached. The Aurora avionics are a single GPS-aided inertial guidance unit with integral mission computer and data links also developed at FTSI. This mission computer (MC) fully controls the Aurora in all flight phases. The pilot send commands to the MC and the MC generates the actual control actuator commands implementing a fly by wire system. The Aurora MC was adapted to the Scaled SS1 System Navigation Unit (SNU) and the Aurora Multi Function Color Displays were adapted to the SS1 Flight Director Display. Scaled Composites Inc engineers developed their own display software. Scaled specifically did not want any autopilot or guidance functions in the SNU but did desire the Aurora low bandwidth UHF downlink and ground station.
FTS also designed and built a cockpit part task trainer/simulator, the basic avionics suite with MFCD's, telemetry ground station, and a subscale rocket motor testbed boost glide vehicle as a part of the X-Prize effort. These efforts are still ongoing but at a reduced pace given the X-Prize win by Scaled. With no surprise, the number of expected investors in "fun" commercial space endeavors did not materialize. So there was never really a race for space or competition given only one fully funded team. Similar to other X-Prize contenders, FTSI is composed of a few dreamers whose day jobs are with large aerospace companies not interested in private space travel.
When FTSI's Ray Nielsen presented the Aurora Project at the 41st Space Congress at Cape Canaveral mixed between all the large company / NASA / USAF expendable launcher programs, the reaction was fairly significant. He was "mobbed" after the presentation by interested parties, listeners who just had fun hearing the story, and many industry participants who were interested in helping including all of the large government test ranges. Burt Rutan proved once again what a small focused and motivated team can do with his private space program (for less than $30M and under three years). It will be interesting to see if someone like Sir Richard Branson can make a business of space rides with Virgin Galactic.
