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Concept visualization of the Orbiter vehicle

VEHICLE PROGRAM

The Orbiter

A vehicle shaped by the mission.

Ascerex is developing a compact VTOL aircraft around a demanding premise: meaningful payload, road-width packaging, and contained propulsion in one integrated system.

Explore the vehicle
Current development focusComputational evaluation — fixed-span flight + enclosed vectored thrust

The vehicle brief

What the vehicle must do

Orbiter begins with a narrow set of non-negotiable design inputs. Those inputs force propulsion, airframe, energy, and control decisions to converge around the same vehicle.

Computational engineering and analytical screening are active. Configuration selection follows integrated feasibility gates.

These are program requirements for engineering evaluation, not demonstrated aircraft performance.

1,000+LB
Payload requirementThe working requirement is sized around five nominal 200 lb occupants.
8FT
Road-width envelopeThe vehicle must fit within an eight-foot stowed width.
VTOL
Operating requirementVertical takeoff and landing shape every downstream architecture trade.
0EXPOSED
Propellers or rotorsThe current requirement keeps thrust-producing hardware contained.

Orbiter architecture

How Orbiter is developed

Orbiter is developed as one coupled system: vehicle envelope, wing and body lift, contained propulsion, energy, structure, thermal behavior, stability, and control must resolve the same mission. The program advances through traceable gates, and new evidence can return a configuration to an earlier stage.

  1. 01
    Established foundation

    Define requirements

    Establish mission, payload, geometry, containment, safety, and operating constraints.

  2. 02
    Analytical framework

    Model mission demand

    Translate each flight phase into force, lift, power, energy, thermal, and control demands under explicit assumptions.

  3. 03
    Current active stage

    Screen architectures

    Qualify evidence and compare propulsion and energy approaches using applicable models and traceable gates.

  4. 04
    Coupled evaluation

    Integrate the vehicle

    Couple geometry, propulsion, aerodynamics, structure, mass, energy, thermal behavior, controls, packaging, and landing systems.

  5. 05
    Progressive fidelity

    Advance viable configurations

    Move surviving configurations into higher-fidelity simulation, integration studies, subsystem testing, and controlled physical testing.

The sequence is iterative. A result can revise an assumption, requirement, model, or configuration before the program advances.

Propulsion research & development

From evidence to engineering decisions

Ascerex is building a computational workflow that turns propulsion research into vehicle-level decisions. The records below track the families under investigation, the studies carried out, and the constraints shaping the next step.

  1. 01 Evidence organized Sources → structured records

    Source claims are traced to their origin, classified by propulsion family, and checked for the inputs a model requires. Missing evidence stays visible.

  2. 02 Models applied Physics → power, energy & mass

    Applicable physics models connect flight demand to installed capability. Bounded studies vary assumptions to expose the constraints that dominate a case.

  3. 03 Decisions recorded Finding → status & next step

    Each record explains what the evidence supports, what limits the result, and why a study proceeds, pauses, or stops under its tested assumptions.

Research families & architecture studies

Select a record to explore the evidence and takeaway.

Study outcomes apply to the configurations and assumptions evaluated. No propulsion architecture has been selected.

Coupled aircraft architecture

Airframe and vehicle integration

No subsystem can be selected independently of the complete vehicle. Packaging, loads, power, heat, control, and aerodynamic behavior must close around one configuration.

  • Parametric geometry
  • Wing and body aerodynamics
  • Occupant and payload packaging
  • Structural load paths
  • Landing systems
Coupled vehicle model

Orbiter configuration

Mission fit, road-width storage, installed performance, mass closure, and operating limits are resolved as one system.

8 FT STOWED ENVELOPE
  • Propulsion placement
  • Center of mass and distribution
  • Energy storage and power
  • Thermal management
  • Controls and operating envelope

The fixed-span vehicle is the current baseline. A deployable wing remains a fallback if the integrated fixed-span system does not satisfy feasibility gates now being defined.

Engineering rules encoded in the workflow

  • Requirements, assumptions, evidence, models, results, and decisions remain traceable.
  • Configured studies can be reproduced from versioned inputs and declared model boundaries.
  • Propulsion families route only to physics models that apply to their mechanisms.
  • Missing information remains unknown, and hard constraints are evaluated before comparison.

Program discipline

Assurance begins with the requirements

Software assurance

Future airborne software will follow an assurance process appropriate to the vehicle's eventual system-safety classification and certification basis.

Policy and compliance

Regulatory, safety, airspace, software-assurance, and operating-approval considerations enter the requirements and verification process from the beginning.

Explore the mission framework