Keywords: X-33 Simulation Lab and Staff Engineers DVIDS691192.jpg en X-33 program engineers at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center Edwards California monitor a flight simulation of the X-33 Advanced Technology Demonstrator as a flight unfolds The simulation provided flight trajectory data while flight control laws were being designed and developed It also provided information which assisted X-33 developer Lockheed Martin in aerodynamic design of the vehicle The X-33 program was a government/industry effort to design build and fly a half-scale prototype that was to demonstrate in flight the new technologies needed for Lockheed Martin's proposed full-scale VentureStar Reusable Launch Vehicle The X-33 was a wedged-shaped subscale technology demonstrator prototype of a potential future Reusable Launch Vehicle RLV that Lockheed Martin had dubbed VentureStar The company had hoped to develop VentureStar early this century Through demonstration flight and ground research NASA's X-33 program was intended to provide the information needed for industry representatives such as Lockheed Martin to decide whether to proceed with the development of a full-scale commercial RLV program A full-scale single-stage-to-orbit RLV was intended to dramatically increase reliability and lower costs of putting a pound of payload into space from the current figure of 10 000 to 1 000 Reducing the cost associated with transporting payloads in Low Earth Orbit LEO by using a commercial RLV was to create new opportunities for space access and significantly improve U S economic competitiveness in the world-wide launch marketplace NASA expected to be a customer not the operator of the commercial RLV The X-33 design was based on a lifting body shape with two revolutionary linear aerospike rocket engines and a rugged metallic thermal protection system The vehicle also had lightweight components and fuel tanks built to conform to the vehicle's outer shape Time between X-33 flights was normally to have been seven days but the program hoped to demonstrate a two-day turnaround between flights during the flight-test phase of the program The X-33 was an unpiloted vehicle that took off vertically like a rocket and landed horizontally like an airplane It was to reach altitudes of up to 50 miles and high hypersonic speeds The X-33 program was managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center and was to be launched from a special launch site on Edwards Air Force Base Due to technical problems with the liquid hydrogen fuel tank and the resulting cost increase and time delay the X-33 program was cancelled in February 2001 NASA Identifier NIX-EC97-44014-1 2009-09-23 Glenn Research Center https //www dvidshub net/image/691192 691192 2012-10-10 12 34 WASHINGTON DC US PD-USGov Edwards Air Force Base Images from DoD uploaded by Fæ |