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NASA's X-37 is an advanced technology flight demonstrator, which will help define the future of space transportation --- pushing technology into a new era of space development and exploration at the dawn of the new century.

The X-37, a reusable launch vehicle, is designed to operate in both the orbital and reentry phases of flight.

The intended objective of the program is to demonstrate the next generation of technologies. The technologies in X-33 are frozen at 1994. Assuming success at this level of technology, the future requirements of NASA and the commercial industry are going to require a next generation of technologies, and NASA would be ready to develop those and to validate them in the X-37 experimental flight program. While the X-33 is a demonstrator for Earth-to-orbit technologies, Future X demonstrators will flight test technologies for multiple applications including orbital and commercial transport, military spaceplane, human exploration, multi-stage and hypersonics research.

In December 1998 NASA selected the Boeing Company, Downey, Calif., for negotiations leading to possible award of a four-year cooperative agreement to develop the first in a continuous series of advanced technology flight demonstrators called Future-X. The total value of the cooperative agreement, including NASA and Boeing contributions, is estimated at $150 million, with an approximate 50/50 sharing agreement.

The X-37 is 27.5 feet long, about half the length of the Shuttle payload bay, and weighs about 6 tons. Its wingspan is about 15 feet, and it contains an experiment bay 7 feet long and 4 feet in diameter.

The X-37's on-orbit propulsion is provided by the AR-2/3, a high reliability engine with a legacy stretching back to the 1950s. Hydrogen peroxide and JP-8, a grade of kerosene commonly used as jet fuel, will propel the X-37 engine. Less toxic, more environmentally friendly and more compact than today's rocket propellants, JP-8 and hydrogen peroxide have applications for operational vehicles that could succeed the flight demonstrator.

The X-37's shape is a 120 percent scale derivative of the Air Force's X-40A, also designed and built by Boeing, which was released from a helicopter and glide-tested in 1998.

In July 2003, an approach and landing test version of the X-37, a spacecraft designed to demonstrate technologies for NASA's Orbital Space Plane Program, has successfully completed structural testing in Huntington Beach, Calif.

The series of ground-based, proof tests are intended to verify the structural integrity of the X-37 Approach and Landing Test Vehicle. The tests apply pressure to the vehicle, simulating flight stresses and loads the X-37 may encounter in flight.

An orbital version of the vehicle is being developed to test and validate technologies in the environment of space and will test vehicle system performance during orbital flight, reentry and landing. Technologies to be demonstrated include thermal protection systems; autonomous advanced guidance, navigation and control systems; high temperature structures; conformal reusable insulation; and high temperature seals. Both vehicles are developed by Boeing Expendable Launch Systems of Huntington Beach, Calif.

Atmospheric flight tests of the Approach and Landing Test Vehicle are scheduled for 2004 and flight tests of the Orbital Vehicle are scheduled for 2006.

In November 2003, NASA had revived plans to fly its X-37 experimental space plane in orbit for 270 days, a requirement that originally was set by the U.S. Air Force as a way to begin proving the feasibility of orbiting Earth with camera- and bomb-laden space planes for months at a time.

The Air Force withdrew from the X-37 program in 2002. At that time, the 270-day requirement then "floated to the side," said Daniel Dumbacher, NASA's X-37 project manager.

Now, however, NASA has decided to restore the 270-day requirement as a way to test new, scientific remote sensing instruments, Dumbacher said. "I would not say that we're defining a military requirement," he said. "The 270-day requirement was revived for the purposes of making X-37 more applicable and useful to other parts of" NASA.

NASA is negotiating with Boeing to include the 270-day requirement in a modified contract that NASA hopes to have completed by early 2004, Dumbacher said. The X-37 orbital flight would take place in late 2006.

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