Development
To ensure European autonomous access to space, in the mid-1980s the French space agency CNES pushed for a European shuttle mimicking those of the Soviet Union and the United States. The European Space Agency approved the project, dubbed Hermes, in November 1987. It was envisioned that Hermes would service a small space station, the Man-Tended Free Flyer (MTFF), built primarily by the German and Italian Industry in the frame of the Columbus program.
Hermes was to be developed in two phases.
Read more about this topic: Hermes (spacecraft)
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