Control Of Test Project Transferred To DARPA
NASA has handed over
its X-37 demonstrator program to the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) in a project that will apparently involve
Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites.
The X-37 is an advanced technology flight demonstrator, one the
agency hopes will push technology into a new era of space
development and exploration.
Designed as a reusable launch vehicle, the X-37 is supposed to
operate in both the orbital and reentry phases of flight. The
robotic space plane will play a key role in NASA’s effort to
dramatically reduce the cost of putting payloads into space.
Capable of being ferried into orbit by the Space Shuttle or an
expendable launch vehicle, the X-37 will operate at speeds up to 25
times the speed of sound and test technologies in the harsh
environments of space and atmospheric reentry.
NASA spokesman Michael Braukus said last week that the space
agency would remain involved in the program, but that DARPA will be
calling the shots.
The Mojave (CA) Desert News reports the X-37 will be carried
aloft during future tests by Scaled Composites' White Knight,
mothership to its suborbital spacecraft, SpaceShipOne. Braukus
confirmed that Scaled will be involved in the X-37's future, but
didn't say whether White Knight would be involved. When it came
down to comparing White Knight to the B-52 that's been lifting the
X-37 to this point, "The cost analysis favored Scaled Composites,"
he told DefenceTalk.com.
Scaled spokeswoman Kay LeFebvre would neither confirm nor deny
her company's involvement in the X-37 project. She did, however,
refer all questions about White Knight to American Mojave Aerospace
Ventures, a partnership between Burt Rutan and SpaceShipOne
financier Paul Allen. So far, that company isn't talking
either.
NASA reportedly got involved with Boeing's X-37 project six
years ago, when the space agency and the Air Force agreed to pay
$173 million to develop the vehicle. The Air Force, however, pulled
out three years later and NASA told Boeing, if you want to keep
this project alive, you'll have to resubmit the entire project for
approval.
Boeing did. With backstage help from US Representative Dana
Rohrabacher (R-CA), Boeing was able to get a $307 million contract
to build not one, but two of the reusable space plane prototypes.
But last year, NASA reportedly told Boeing to stop working on the
project altogether.
Now What?
So why the sudden Air
Force interest in the X-37? MSNBC investigative producer Robert
Windrem reports the X-37 could well be the advance guard of what
could end up a fleet of "space operational vehicles" designed to
launch and bomb any target in the world within 90 minutes of a
presidential go-ahead.
Suddenly, the X-37 is back in vogue. "I think it will be built,"
said William Martel, a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory
Board and the editor of "Technological Arsenal," in an interview
with MSNBC's Windrem. "This is the most advanced of the space
operations vehicle programs. It may be 10 to 15 years away, but it
fits nicely into (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld’s
revolution in military affairs. It gets into defending the high
ground, quick strike capability, quantum leaps in technology and
the need to focus on Asia."