New Space Plane Ready For Flight

If the advocates of Orion have their way, this is not the for runner of things to come. Not only do they want a capsule to be the only way people get into space, but it is to be the only way for the next half century.
If this really works, then it will prove Obama right.

Not really, the technolgy has a long way to go (billions of unavailable $) to be able to make a lunar or Mars return.

It will be fascinating to see where this goes.

In the last few launches the USAF has (for a reason) burned the Centaur to near exhaustion after delivering its payload (including sending one into solar orbit for disposal). Plus they have kept the Centaur "alive" for almost a week after launch.

The X37 (unless there is another payload) is a small payload with a big second stage. One wonders if plane changes are coming, a boot leg into some higher inclination or they are planning to do test with the Second stage as a target. It will be all very interesting to see what this turns out to be a precursor off...maybe a satellite replenishment system?

Robert G. Oler

"If the advocates of Orion have their way, this is not the for runner of things to come"

There is no evidence to support this statement. Many Orion supporters want the US to have HSF capability in the shortest amount of time. Most of us would rather use a shuttle type vehicle, but for a manned version that will take a while (many years) to develop, especially taking the recommendations of the Columbia accident report into account.

This is an unmanned vehicle so there is not as much concern with debris hits on the re-entry surfaces. This is not only during launch, but in orbit. It also does not have any launch abort technology used, again because it is unmanned.

I'm generally an Obama supporter and I would *not* go that far. There's been no talk that I'm aware of from the administration about an orbital manned reusable space plane. Sadly, I think it's going to be quite a while before we see one again.

Once it's gone, I hope the STS is more widely appreciated for how ahead of its time it was (I don't enjoy having to refer to it in the past tense). I feel it was a grand achievement that, to this point, hasn't received nearly its due.

In my opinion, this X-37B is a nifty machine; one that certainly has the potential to advance the field, but the vehicle is all about autonomy and the Air Force.

Ah yes but we will never know will we!
More seriously can NASA 'buy back' the operational data on how it performs Or has the entire concept disappeared into a BlackOps BlackHole :(

I'll assume that Bernie is unaware of why it is NASA actually selected the Orion design as it exists today. There are actually some very good reasons for this choice.

Whilst "space-planes" look cool (I think so myself), they have several disadvantages in BEO applications. Firstly, the TPS is exposed to potential MMOD throughout the mission, unlike the capsule, which has a service module covering it. Secondly, re-entry from an interplanetary transfer orbit is marginal in a winged spacecraft; it is somewhat less so with a lifting body, but it would still require some delicate manoeuvres.

Overall, Orion as it is represents a low-risk design, doing what is known to work, rather than spend money solving the problems of making a lifting-body or winged RV work in interplanetary space.

FWIW, since NASA is going to have ten years before it has to make its new BEO crew vehicle work, they might want to spend time and money working on that problem. Alternately, they can restrict the winged 'shuttles' to Earth-to-LEO and instead try to build an exclusively orbit-to-orbit interplanetary archetecture (one of the big costs that eventually killed SEI back in the '90s).

Overall, Orion as it is represents a low-risk design, doing what is known to work, rather than spend money solving the problems of making a lifting-body or winged RV work in interplanetary space.

Try this:

"Overall, piston engined airliners as they are represent a low-risk design, doing what is known to work, rather than spend money solving the problems of making swept-wing turbojet passenger aircraft work in the stratosphere."

This is what the Defense Department wanted in a Shuttle to begin with: reusable, relatively inexpensive, quickly turned around, and capable of long-duration missions. In short, it appears to be most everything they asked for when the STS Compromise was hashed out during the Nixon administration, save for the capability of large payload launch and/or return.

As for adapting this as a LEO workhorse, I am sure that there are literally hundreds of obstacles to reconfiguring and man-rating a vehicle such as this, but quite honestly, it looks to be exactly what we should focus upon for commercial spaceflight: we'll do the craft, you boost it up there. Perhaps Keith can comment on that, he knows far more than I do or ever will.

I do know that the trick is to get a two failure-safe launch platform. Naturally, the X37B is the most complicated aspect of that. It is designed to be an unmanned vehicle, so there is no simple retrofit for it.

From a booster standpoint, it is currently mated to the good ole Atlas V. Currently the Atlas V and Delta IV are one-failure safe, and it would add weight and reduce the capabilities in so doing. There would need to be a Delta V or Atlas VI, because the booster would be significantly changed -- probably widened and/or stretched to provide the necessary redundancies and capabilities.

So as you can see, the devil is in the details here, and those are macro views of the details and far from the individual challenges that would arise.

I still think, however, it is worth pursuing, perhaps as a follow-on to the Orion capsule.

This looks like a good place to share some thoughts I shared with Keith in private email a while back...

I was reading the obituary of Robert White and his role in early space flight. This sentence caught my attention: "The X-15 was the forerunner of the space shuttle, whose first orbital flight was in 1981." Of course this is true, but what got me to thinking is, if NASA is serious about resurrecting R&D of space technology, what better proof of it's commitment than reinstituting the X progam.

In particular, I was thinking of what it would take to move the X-15 to the next level: a one-person orbital space plane. For the longest time, NASA has been pushing the "bigger is better" philosophy, ala "Apollo on steriods". Surely there is a place for Big, but maybe it's time to revisit the "small is beautiful" philosophy--at least when it come to true R&D that pushes the technological envelope for orbital access. How about "X-15 on steroids" for a change? :-)

Perhaps this would be an interesting question to ask your readers: how best to push the R&D envelope for new orbital access technology?

In any case, it would sure be nice to see Robert White's legacy live on in a new NASA vision of the X program.

Once again, the "Spam canners" Don't get it. Nobody is talking about sending a winged or lifting body beyond LEO. Nobody. If we are to truly explore space, one needs a true spacecraft. That is to say, no re entry system outside of LEO. A craft which goes from LEO to the Moon, Mars, or Asteroid and returns to LEO to be serviced by a Shuttle.
This return to the sixties calls for scrapping the shuttle and all work towards this end and simply re living past glories all the while telling the taxpayer to keep his mouth shut and checkbook open.

The problem with your orbit-to-orbit concept, of course being braking back into LEO. This is not a trivial problem and requires either you carry a lot more propellent or carry a... what...? Yes, you guessed it, a reusable heat shield.

Bernie, do you have a script you read from? Do you actually have any idea what's going on?

Or do you just see everything through poo tinted glasses?

America's launching the first orbital space plane since the Buran flew in '88.

Scaled Composites is soon going to fly paying passengers on their suborbital space plane for six.

The "sixties glory day" Moon plan is being CANCELLED. Orion is only an escape pod now. Escape pods don't have to look cool or even reusable. It just has to drop into the sea in case of emergency.

The whole point of the proposed new policy is that NASA is going to delegate these matters to private parties. These things won't even be NASA's decision anymore.

So go read your script to SpaceX.

With a viable space transportation system, Loading enough propellant should not be a problem

The supposed aim of the new plan is to make space more affordable to a broader array of businesses (Not just to payoff Elon Musk for being an avid Obama supporter). To which we know disposable ships are a dead end.

I don't see why NASA shouldn't buy back as much data as the military will let it have and get a jump start on designing new RLV's.
Actual space development is going to require a Gas&Go reusable rocket, the likes of which no one is willing to risk their personal money on.

This seems like a mission tailor made for a R&D focused NASA.

I notice that the X-37B has only a nine minute launch window. Perhaps they are planning a rendezvous?

A few observations & a question.

The X-37B is a DOD system, working out of the USAF Rapid Capabilities Office. The concept is a rapid-response launch capability in support of DOD missions, launched from either Vandenburg or Kennedy. It is _not_ part of the Obama space initiative or a left-over from Aeres or the STS. The X-37B is LEO; MEO and beyond will be up to any follow-on C/D/E/etc variants or any replacement X-craft. As is, using its Rocketdyne LR121-NA-1 aka AR-2/3 engine (hydrogen peroxide & JP-8), it is a test bed. Its payload bay (7' long x 4' diameter) allows it to carry some instrumentation along with a compact solar array (as seen in some illustrations) in order to support actual quick-response missions should the need arise. If it works, then the proof of concept is done and DOD can move on with follow-on efforts. If commercial space copies the process, great, just as it'll be great if there are copies of SpaceX, Scaled Composites, and others on the commercial side.

Question: NASA TV doesn't show this in their schedule. Where's the TV/Internet coverage?

Heres the link for the launch coverage.

http://mfile.akamai.com/29730/live/reflector:58048.asx?bkup=58227