New US Military Space Plane Aims for 2017 Liftoff

[Jesus Malverde]

Source: Space.com

The United States military is making progress toward developing a new unmanned space plane, which it aims to begin flight-testing in 2017.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to award the first design contracts for the vehicle project — known as Experimental Spaceplane, or XS-1— in May or thereabouts, officials said. Current schedules call for the vessel to get off the ground for the first time in late 2017 and make an orbital test flight the following year.

DARPA has high expectations for the XS-1 program, which it hopes can eventually launch 3,000- to 5,000-lb (1,361 to 2,268 kilograms) payloads to orbit for less than $5 million per flight — and to do it at least 10 times per year. [Space Planes: Evolution of the Winged Spaceship (Infographic)]

"The vision here is to break the cycle of escalating space system costs, enable routine space access and hypersonic vehicles," XS-1 program manager Jess Sponable said Feb. 5 during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations (FISO) working group. (Hypersonic flight is generally defined as anything greater than five times the speed of sound.)


Read more: http://www.space.com/24639-united-states-military-space-plane-xs1.html

[1000words]

1. Not much of a deviation from the Shuttle design

Disappointing, in that regard.

[jeff47]

2. It hasn't been designed yet.

The contract is for designing the vehicle. We don't know how "shuttle-like" it will be.

The illustrations in the article are just what some artist made up.

[1000words]

3. Ah ...

Thanks.

[bigdarryl]

4. I though we were broke

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Our 'dire situation' WRT space access is our own doing. And it is not a technological problem.

It's a political problem TWO ways:

1. Not funding NASA properly.
2. Completely fucking up on international diplomacy.


What's wrong with leaning on Russia for access? Nothing, if you cultivate a better diplomatic relationship, extend trust, and work with them. Browbeating them with Voice Of America and military support for Georgia, and fucking around in the Ukraine, just delays and denies advancement of Russia itself, on everything from openness, to civil rights. Every day we make the people of Russia cling to relics like Putin, out of adversarial fear, is a day we delay their own civil rights movements.

We have done fucked this up, no matter which way you look at it.

[jsr]

6. "For less than $5 million per flight"

Yeah, right.

[jakeXT]

7. Everytime I hear 'hypersonic' I have to think of Hypersonic Weapon System (HWS)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project

[cvoogt]

8. Cool

So that will give hungry kids lunches and stuff, right? Oh.