Pre-X the ESA's ARD vehicles. Development work quickly proceeded through the preliminary design definition phase, reaching a system requirements review by mid-2007. On 18 December 2009, the ESA announced the signing of a contract with Thales Alenia Space, valued at , to cover 18 months of preliminary IXV work. In 2011, the total estimated cost for the IXV project was reportedly . During late 2012, the IXV's subsonic parachute system was tested at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, United States. Shortly thereafter, a series of water impact tests were conducted at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche's INSEAN research tank near Rome, Italy. On 21 June 2013, an IXV test vehicle was dropped from an altitude of in the Salto di Quirra range off Sardinia, Italy. The purpose of this test-drop was to validate the vehicle's water-landing system, including the subsonic parachute, flotation balloons, and beacon deployment. A small anomaly was encountered during the inflation of the balloons; however, all of the other systems performed as expected. Following the drop-test, the vehicle was retrieved for further analysis. On 23 June 2014, the recovery ship Nos Aries conducted a training exercise involving a single IXV test article off the coast of Tuscany. During June 2014, the IXV test vehicle arrived at the ESTEC Technical Centre in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, to undergo a test campaign to confirm its flight readiness in anticipation of a flight on a Vega rocket, which was by that point scheduled to occur during November of that year. Design The Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) is a prototype unmanned reusable spaceplane —and the precursor of the next model called Space Rider. According to the ESA, the Intermediate part of its name is due to the shape of the vehicle not necessarily being representative of the envisioned follow-on production spacecraft. It possesses a lifting body arrangement which lacks wings of any sort, resulting in a lift to drag ratio (L/D) of 0.7 during the reentry. The size and shape is balanced between the need to maximise internal volume to accommodate experimental payloads while keeping within the mass limits of the Vega launcher and favourable centre of gravity. The vehicle purposefully includes several key technologies of interest to the ESA, including its thermal protection system and the presence of active aerodynamic control surfaces. Control and manoeuvrability of the IXV is provided by a combination of these aerodynamic surfaces (comprising a pair of