New Mars Forums

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Rutan to try for orbital spaceplane?

Nice taxi test image
[url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8008541/]Mothership adopts a new space plane
SpaceShipOne’s White Knight used for X-37 tests[/url]

Technology testbed
The X-37 has been billed as an unpiloted, autonomously operated vehicle designed to conduct on-orbit operations and collect test data in the Mach 25 (re-entry) region of flight.

According to a Boeing fact sheet on the craft, the X-37 project is exploring potential new commercial and military reusable space vehicle market applications, be they on-orbit satellite repair to the next-generation of totally reusable launch vehicles.

Late last year, NASA transferred its X-37 technology demonstration program to DARPA.

Other NASA's experimental flight projects are as follows:
• X-37
• X-40A
• X-43A
• OSP/CEV
• DCX

Some would argue that they were not all give the chance to flourish and many would never have.

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,776

Re: Rutan to try for orbital spaceplane?

an old topic on space planes worth a bump

X37 equivalents of vehicles

China's space plane releases another mystery object into orbit
https://www.space.com/china-spaceplane- … rd-mission