NASA and The Boeing Co. have entered into a $173 million cooperative agreement to develop a new experimental space plane called the X-37 that will be ferried into orbit to test new technologies for reusable launch vehicles.
NASA selected Boeing, of Seal Beach, Calif., in December 1998, for negotiations
leading to a four-year agreement to develop and fly the orbital testbed. The
reusable space plane will demonstrate 41 airframe, propulsion and operations
technologies aimed at significantly cutting the cost of space flight. The X-37
can be carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle or be launched by an expendable
rocket.
The government-industry team will share the cost of the program roughly 50-50.
The Air Force is committing $16 million to demonstrate technologies needed to
improve future military spacecraft.
The X-37 measures 27.5 feet long with a wingspan of about 15 feet. It has an
experiment bay 7 feet long and 4 feet in diameter. Its shape is a
120-percent-scale derivative of the X-40A, an unpowered Air Force vehicle also
designed and built by Boeing, which was released from a helicopter and
glide-tested in 1998. The X-40A, which lacks the X-37?s advanced thermal
protection materials, rocket engine, experiment bay and other spacecraft
systems, will be drop tested from a B-52 carrier plane to reduce risk prior to
expanded testing with the X-37.
The unpiloted X-37 will be NASA's first reusable launch vehicle demonstrator to
fly in both orbital and reentry environments, operating at speeds up to 25 times
the speed of sound. NASA's X-33 and X-34 technology demonstrators are
suborbital and operate at lower speeds.
After the X-37 is deployed, it will remain in orbit up to 21 days, performing a
variety of experiments before reentering the atmosphere and landing. Various
locations are being studied for its landing site.
Assembly, integration, checkout and tests are planned at Boeing facilities in
Palmdale and Seal Beach, Calif., in 2000 and 2001.
The first unpowered flight test of the X-37 from a B-52 is planned for fall 2001
at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Two orbital tests are planned for 2002.
The goal of the X-37 and NASA?s other reusable technology demonstrators is to
reduce the cost of getting into space from $10,000 to $1,000 per pound while
increasing reliability.
The X-37 government team, led by the Marshall Center, also includes NASA's Ames
Research Center, Mountain View, Calif.; Kennedy Space Center, Fla.; Goddard
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.; Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.; and
Dryden Flight Research Center and the U.S. Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards
Air Force Base.
The X-37 industry team is led by The Boeing Co. of Seal Beach. Other Boeing
facilities participating in the program are located in Huntington Beach and
Palmdale, Calif., Seattle, and St. Louis.