HAVE is an attempt at creating a cheap, compact, durable, and reusable payload for many high altitude vehicles including balloons, rockets, and gliders.

The ultimate aim of the programme is to have a solar-propeller-powered high altitude aeroplane that can take small payloads to ~30 km (~105k ft) and back controlled completely autonomously by an on-board flight computer; the entire flight - ascent, hover-stay in near space, and descent, will all be controlled by an auto-pilot. Ground-to-air comms will allow a few important commands such as parachute open (able to be performed manually in the event of coming too close to a foreign object; an onboard motion sensor should perform this action automatically in such a scenario, but the manual control possibility will be there for safety redundancy).

Ultimately, I hope to convert the high altitude plane into a mini sub-orbital (hypothetically, someday orbital) single-stage liquid-fuelled (LH2/LOX electrolysed by the engines on-the-fly (literally :D) - so there will never be much of the highly-flammable/explosive LH2/LOX propellant on-board at any one time - other than in the engine at the time it is being accelerated as a reaction mass).

Anyway, that's just the dream. The short-term mission manifest is as follows:

• HAVE-1: Simple up-and-down flight to ~20-30 km. Prove radio/SMS comms, GPS position & velocity data, SD logging capability. Proof of concept of use of solar panels as sole power source, proof of concept of durable and reusable ultra-small near spacecraft.

• HAVE-2: Glider (deadstick lander) concept demonstrator flight. First use of ground-to-air comms to allow for manual parachute opening. First use of broadcasting live (i.e. not SSTV) video (probably 320×480) from the edge of space. First HAVE landing of high altitude vehicle at launch site.

• HAVE-3: First powered (high altitude plane) concept technology demonstrator flight. Up and down to 30 km, powered all the way.

• HAVE-4: Technology demonstrator for water-fuelled LH2/LOX-propelled rocket engine (single engine, single stage). Up and down to 200 km. Re-enter with non-ablative, reusable heatshield (fire retros to slow down before entry??).

• HAVE-5: First orbital flight. 100 kg payload up to ~350 km circular low Earth orbit. 1 day in orbit, then re-enter, descent, and land. Pave the way for more awesomeness. >1 engine provides far faster acceleration, more thrust, and best of all, engine out capability.