By 2025, ESA officials said, Space Rider could be operating commercially, flying science payloads and bringing them back to Earth for roughly $4,200 per pound ($9,200 per kilogram).

Arianespace, the Evry, France-based launch services provider, would likely serve as Space Rider's operator, offering industry and government customers the opportunity to fill the space plane's 1,760-lb. (800 kg) payload capacity with microgravity science, materials testing, telecommunications and robotics demonstrations.

Space Rider is being developed by Thales Alenia Space and Lockheed Martin under the direction of the Italian Aerospace Research Centre, Cira. Funding for the program's design phase was approved in December by ESA's 22 member states.

A 2020 test flight would see Space Rider launch atop Arianespace's Vega-C rocket (which makes its own debut in 2019) and land on a runway on one of the Atlantic's Azores islands, Santa Maria.