~ Excerpt from the People's Herald, 2179-08-30 ~

LATEST STARFIRE GOES INTERPLANETARY

The latest development in the Askhari space program came this afternoon as the Commonwealth Aerospace Cooperative has unveiled its first military spacecraft! During an hour-long livestream watched by over 10 million citizens, the 'starfighter' was shown engaging in mock combat with automated drones and navigating through the Vetin belt - a natural obstacle course - before docking at its stationary homebase near Jylkir IV.

While at a glance the fighter may seem structurally similar to its suborbital predecessors, the CAsC Starfire Mark 15 was redesigned to work in an environment where aerodynamic control surfaces are fundamentally unusable. In outer space, the vehicle's aerodynamic devices are automatically retracted; instead, an array of 32 RCS thrusters allows the pilot to carry out high-speed maneuvers. Much like its 'grounded' cousins, the Mk. 15 is armed with quadruple rechargeable 45THz lasers, although the fighter cannot carry a secondary bombload (as it would be of little use in a zero-G environment).

The starfighter's launch has been widely lauded for its innovativeness; however, some have criticised the Aerospace Cooperative for spending any resources on military spaceships to begin with. MP K'Herrix wrote: "Once again, the military industry tries to justify its continued existence by 'defending' us against 'threats' that may not even exist. What's next, dumping gigatons of bug spray in orbit just in case some killer bees from outer space come knocking?"

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A fancy fancy pterosaur-inspired space plane render done by AdamKop on Deviantart. The closest you can get to a flying raptor!