NASA will also order $8.5 million in additional short lead time hardware components for the second space launcher. A second option of $1.8 million to support piece assembly units into subsystems will also follow shortly, NASA sources said.

The options exercised follow a $50 million 1996 contract for design and flight test of a single X-34 suborbital test vehicle. The added tests that will use the second vehicle will include unpowered landing trials not covered in the first phase, set to begin late this year with taxi tests at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

The X-34 is a small, winged vehicle that will test the technologies for reusable spaceflight and a net generation of expendable upper stages that will send satellites and payloads into orbit. The X-34 craft itself will not be placed into orbit. What was not clear following Wednesday's announcement is what other space transportation or aeronautics programs will be cut to make room for the X-34 increases. NASA headquarters sources had said last year that funds for the 2nd X-34 were unlikely, given the constrained budget environment. Concerns that a launch accident would cripple a one-vehicle test program apparently helped fund the second vehicle.