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X-38 Atmospheric Vehicle Completes First Unpiloted Flight Test

Michael Braukus
Headquarters, Washington, DC             March 12, 1998
(Phone:  202/358-1979)

James Hartsfield
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX
(Phone:  281/483-5111)

Fred Brown
Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA
(Phone:  805/258-2663)

RELEASE:  98-44

X-38 ATMOSPHERIC VEHICLE COMPLETES FIRST UNPILOTED FLIGHT TEST

    Development of the X-38, an innovative new spacecraft 
design planned for use as a future International Space Station 
emergency crew return "lifeboat," passed a major milestone 
today with a successful first unpiloted flight test.

    The first X-38 atmospheric test vehicle was dropped from 
under the wing of NASA's B-52 aircraft at the Dryden Flight 
Research Center, Edwards, CA, at 11:30 a.m. EST and completed a 
descent from a 23,000 foot altitude at 11:38 a.m. EST.  The 
test focused on the use of the X-38's parafoil parachute, which 
deployed as planned within seconds after the vehicle's release 
from the B-52 and guided the test craft to landing.

    "This was a real experimental flight test and the 
culmination of two years of hard work by a team from the 
Johnson Space Center and the Dryden Flight Research Center," X-
38 project manager John Muratore said.  "We had done everything 
we could to minimize the unknowns. But the real proof of the 
concept is a successful flight.  We got one of those today, and 
we plan to do this about 20 more times over the next two years 
to prove we're ready to fly from space."

    Atmospheric drop tests of the X-38 will continue for the 
next two years using three increasingly complex test vehicles.  
The drop tests will increase in altitude to a height of 50,000 
feet and include longer flight times for the test craft prior 
to deployment of the parafoil. In 2000, an unpiloted space test 
vehicle is planned to be deployed from a Space Shuttle and 
descend to a landing.  The X-38 crew return vehicle is targeted 
to begin operations aboard the International Space Station in 2003.

    "With Johnson and Dryden employees working as a team, we 
were able to design, outfit and test the vehicle," said Bob 
Baron, Dryden X-38 project manager.  "Using existing NASA 
infrastructure, such as the Johnson and Dryden control rooms 
and the B-52 mothership, has provided considerable cost and 
schedule savings in the development of this prototype X-38 vehicle."

    Once operational, the X-38 will become the first new human 
spacecraft designed to return humans from orbit in more than 20 
years, and it is being developed at a fraction of the cost of 
past human space vehicles.  The primary application of the new 
spacecraft would be as an International Space Station 
"lifeboat," but the project also aims at developing a design 
that could be easily modified for other uses, such as a 
possible joint U.S. and international human spacecraft that 
could be launched on expendable rockets as well as the Space 
Shuttle.  The European Space Agency is cooperating with NASA in 
the current development work, supplying several components for 
the planned space test vehicle.

    The X-38 is being developed with an unprecedented eye 
toward efficiency, taking advantage of available equipment and 
already-developed technology for as much as 80 percent of the 
spacecraft's design.  The design uses a lifting body concept 
originally developed by the Air Force X-24A project in the mid-
1970s.  Following the jettison of a deorbit engine module, the 
X-38 would glide from orbit unpowered like the Space Shuttle 
and then use the steerable parafoil parachute for its final 
descent to landing.

    In the early years of the International Space Station, a 
Russian Soyuz spacecraft will be attached to the station as a 
crew return vehicle.  But, as the size of the station crew 
increases, a return vehicle like the X-38, that can accommodate 
up to seven passengers, will be needed.

                             -end-