Silbervogel

Silver Bird, Antipodal Bomber, Sänger-Bredt Bomber

Mission Profile

The Silbervogel (Silver Bird), also known as the Sänger-Bredt Antipodal Bomber, was a visionary German World War II concept for an intercontinental hypersonic bomber spaceplane designed by engineers Eugen Sänger and Irene Bredt from 1941. Projected to be 28 m long with a liftoff mass of 100 tonnes, it was designed to be launched along a rocket sled track and skip along the upper atmosphere to deliver a bomb payload anywhere on Earth before gliding back for landing. Though never built, the Silbervogel's boost-glide trajectory concept and spaceplane design were extraordinarily prescient, profoundly influencing postwar hypersonic vehicle research and the boost-glide warhead designs of the 21st century.