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."

FMI: www.boeing.com, www.scaled.com