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X-38 Crew Ferry Ready For Drop Tests
by Frank Sietzen "SpaceCast News Service"
Proton LaunchWashington - June 9, 1997 - The latest prototype "X" research spacecraft arrived June 4th at its testing base in the California desert, ready for airborne flight tests scheduled to start next month. The X-38 is a ferry spacecraft, designed to both carry astronauts back to Earth in an emergency escape from the International Space Station Alpha as well as serve as an interim or logistics manned spacecraft, capable of ferrying crews to orbit atop any one of a series of expendable rockets like the U.S. Atlas or French Ariane 5.

Based on the U.S. Air Force X-24A research craft of the 1970's, the X-38 is a lifting body, meaning it can fly through the atmosphere in controlled flight and land like an aircraft on a runway, but without wings. The operational version of the craft will be capable of carrying six astronauts, but the prototypes to be tested at Edwards Air Force Base in California are sub scale models. Each test craft will be carried aloft by a B-52 bomber to 25,000 feet above the desert floor. The test vehicles will be dropped from the bomber, and will glide down to landing, using a steerable parafoil for descent.

The lifting craft are the first of their kind to be designed with an all-electric flight control system, and the first lifting bodies to use the steerable parafoil for landing. Two years of drop test landings are to be conducted from the California base, the same used during the X-15 test program of the 1960's - which used the same B-52 bomber the X-38 will use to carry the X-15. If the Edwards tests are successful, a full sized unpiloted version of the lifting body spacecraft will be carried into orbit inside the space shuttle's cargo bay in 2000 for an unmanned orbital test. Both the three research versions as well as the unmanned orbital test vehicle are built at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Reuseable Launch Vehicle Archive at Spacer.Com

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