Horus

German manned spaceplane. Hypersonic Orbital Upper Stage was part of the Saenger-II spaceplane studied in Germany from 1985-1993. It would have separated from the lower stage at Mach 6.6 and flown to orbit.

One alternate payload was a passenger module for 36 persons.

Proposed orbiter of a two stage to orbit vehicle. Air-breathing hypersonic first stage and delta wing second stage. The German Hypersonics Program and its Saenger II reference vehicle received most of the domestic funding for spaceplane development in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Saenger II comprised a large hypersonic booster aircraft capable of Mach 4 cruise plus a small rocket-powered upper stage (HORUS) that could deliver people and cargo to low Earth orbit. The booster aircraft (to be powered by turboramjets) was designed for maximum commonality with a supersonic passenger transport (with. a cruise range of 11,000km). Development would have been very costly and the program was cancelled in 1994.

Crew Size: 2.