DARPA Is Building A New Space Plane For The Pentagon

The Daily Caller ^ | 28 Aug 2014 | Giuseppe Macri

[mandaladon]

Aerospace and defense contractor Northrop Grumman recently unveiled its concept for the Pentagon’s new space plane, the XS-1 — an unmanned drone-shuttle capable of carrying small and medium-sized satellites into orbit cheaply and autonomously.

“It would be a spacecraft that most resembles what people see in the movies,” former Air Force Space Command Officer Brian Weeden told War is Boring about the concept craft, which is being headed up by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Northrop is competing with Boeing and Masten Space Systems for the contract to build the final product.

“If we could pull it off, it would enable much cheaper and faster access to space,” Weeden said. “Something that many people see as the key to opening up space development.”

While a typical single-use rocket-launched satellite takes months to plan at a typical cost of more than $50-million per launch, DARPA wants the XS-1 to be capable of deploying within hours, and able to execute 10 launches in just as many days at a cost of $5-million each, according to the report.

Designing such a craft carries a host of engineering obstacles, including adding permanent systems like landing equipment, fuel tanks and boosters. The latter two are typically shed during the course of a multi-stage rocket launch.

[mandaladon]

Northrop’s concept attempts to tackle some of these issues by flying the XS-1 itself into sub-orbital space, where it will fire a single-use rocket carrying a satellite into low-Earth orbit before gliding back down to the surface...........................Interesting concept

[GraceG]

While a typical single-use rocket-launched satellite takes months to plan at a typical cost of more than $50-million per launch, DARPA wants the XS-1 to be capable of deploying within hours, and able to execute 10 launches in just as many days at a cost of $5-million each, according to the report.

[GeronL]

That would be pretty amazing if it can be done

[GraceG]

While a typical single-use rocket-launched satellite takes months to plan at a typical cost of more than $50-million per launch, DARPA wants the XS-1 to be capable of deploying within hours, and able to execute 10 launches in just as many days at a cost of $5-million each, according to the report.

Isnt that what they promised with the old space shuttle?

[thackney]

flying the XS-1 itself into sub-orbital space, where it will fire a single-use rocket carrying a satellite into low-Earth orbit before gliding back down to the surface

I suspect it will also be useful for shooting down satellites as well.

[wally_bert]

Radical I dare say, radical for the 1970s.

[skinkinthegrass]

I think this is a mssg. to our numerous foes capable of launching killer satellites.

[Bigtigermike]

DARPA Chief Donald Anderson must be heading this project

[thackney]

Well, we had one with an L-1011

- - -

In this case, both would unmanned.

[McGruff]

an unmanned drone-shuttle capable of carrying small and medium-sized satellites into orbit cheaply and autonomously.

Sounds reasonable. Don't we depend on Russian rockets right now? How stupid is that.

[Steely Tom]

Isnt that what they promised with the old space shuttle?

It was a good goal then, and it's a good goal now.

[tanknetter]

Iirc the goal was for the Shuttle fleet to fly a mission every two weeks with a two month turnaround for each shuttle between missions. So with a four shuttle fleet each shuttle would fly a mission once every two months. For about 26 missions per year.

NASA was on it’s way towards meeting that milestone (never would have met it tho, probably, but were doing better than one mission per month) when Challenger was lost. Challenger demonstrated that the risks involved with the shuttle were much higher than anticipated (one in 25 risk of a catastrophic event) and politically unacceptable.

So NASA implemented all sorts of risk mitigation measures that raised the chances of a catastrophic event to about one in four hundred. But also strung out the time between missions significantly, given the amount of additional work necessary on the shuttles between missions.

What I’d like to see is how similar this new craft is to the X-37 minishuttle ...

[Steely Tom]

Well, we had one with an L-1011 -- where did that go?

According to this article, Pegasus became operational in 1990 and is still operational today.

[thackney]

Don’t we depend on Russian rockets right now?

No.

You may be thinking of putting our people on the space station.

[Vermont Lt]

I thought we already had that? Is this the thing the Air Force has been flying and keeping up there for months at a time?

[BenLurkin]

“It would be a spacecraft that most resembles what people see in the movies,”

Oh? Which movie?

[TalonDJ]

And we had all sorts of plans to build a bigger version, the X-34. But like all the other promising NASA programs it got canceled.