Free Republic

Sierra Nevada is emerging as the likely front runner to use the former NASA X-34 reusable launch vehicle demonstrator as a flying testbed for its Dream Chaser orbital space vehicle. The two surviving Orbital Sciences-built X-34s were moved by road to Mojave, Calif., on Nov. 16 from Edwards AFB, Calif., where they had been in storage since the program was canceled in 2001. The two 58.3-ft. vehicles, now stored inside a hangar belonging to the National Test Pilots School, were developed under a NASA program begun in 1996 to provide a low-cost advanced technology flight demonstration testbed vehicle for space...

The aviation and space press buzzed last week with the news that NASA had quietly moved its two long-grounded X-34 space planes from open storage at the space agency's Dryden center - located on Edwards Air Force Base in California - to a test pilot school in the Mojave Desert. At the desert facility, the mid-'90s-vintage, robotic X-34s would be inspected to determine if they were capable of flying again. It seemed that NASA was eying a dramatic return to the business of fast, cheap space access using a reusable, airplane-style vehicle - something the Air Force has enthusiastically embraced...

The U.S. Air Force is gearing up for the first of four planned test flights of a hypersonic aircraft designed to operate for much longer durations and cover far greater distances than previous platforms of its type. The maiden flight of the X-51 Waverider aircraft — the first U.S. hypersonic vehicle to fly in six years — is scheduled to take place later in March. Boeing Defense, Space & Security Systems of St. Louis has been developing the aircraft since 2003 on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The missile-shaped X-51 will be...