Overview

• Arc is a lifting-body reentry vehicle that lands under parachutes without a runway, with a payload capacity of about 500 pounds in a roughly 8-by-4-foot form factor.
• Inversion says Arc will reenter at around Mach 20 and use a heat shield rated to about 3,000°C, with cross-range maneuvering on the order of 1,000 kilometers for precise reach.
• The company’s concept calls for parking vehicles in low Earth orbit for up to five years, then autonomously commanding reentry to a chosen site within about an hour.
• Inversion reports four successful Arc test flights and points to its earlier Ray prototype, which flew a deorbit and reentry test on SpaceX’s Transporter-12 mission.
• Initial operations are slated for the defense sector, with broader commercial offerings to follow later, and the company envisions scaling to a large orbital logistics network.