Definition
A reusable suborbital or orbital vehicle used to carry crew, passengers, cargo, or experiments to and from space, or to support space operations such as launching, recovering, or servicing other space vehicles.
Plain English
An aircraft or spacecraft built to fly into space, or to help other space vehicles do their job.
Context Anchor
Seen in FAA, airport, or airspace information about commercial space launch or reentry activity.
Why Pilots Care
As commercial spaceflight grows, pilots increasingly share airspace with these vehicles during launch and recovery operations, and some pilots train to fly them.
Intuition Check
Do not read “space support vehicle” as a ground-service truck or ramp vehicle. In this context, it means a vehicle tied to a spaceflight operation that can affect flight in the airspace.
Example Sentence 1
The company developed a space support vehicle capable of carrying small satellites into low Earth orbit.
Example Sentence 2
Crew aboard the space support vehicle maintained radio contact during the recovery phase.