Unmanned Vehicle To Gather Valuable Data

NASA has set Saturday, March 27, for the flight of its experimental X-43A hypersonic research aircraft. The unmanned 12-foot-long vehicle, part aircraft and part spacecraft, will be dropped from the wing of a modified B-52 aircraft, boosted to nearly 100,000 feet altitude by a booster rocket and released over the Pacific Ocean to briefly fly under its own power at seven times the speed of sound, almost 5,000 mph. The flight is part of the Hyper-X program, a research effort designed to demonstrate alternate propulsion technologies for access to space and high-speed flight within the atmosphere. It will provide unique "first time" free flight data on hypersonic air-breathing engine technologies that have large potential pay-offs.

Testimony Highlighted Role Of Entrepreneurs In Space

Jeff Greason, President and CEO of XCOR Aerospace testified at a public hearing before the President's Commission on Implementation of U.S. Space Exploration Policy (Moon, Mars and Beyond) in Atlanta at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The Commission, also known as the Aldridge Commission, is comprised of business, aerospace and planetary science leaders. The Commission is charged with building consensus, providing recommendations to the President regarding moon research activities, increasing young people's interest in space science, and bringing together industry and other countries as space partners.