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Northrop Grumman XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
August 19, 2014
Filed under , ,

Northrop Grumman Developing XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane Design for DARPA
“Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC) with Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic is developing a preliminary design and flight demonstration plan for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Experimental Spaceplane XS-1 program.
XS-1 has a reusable booster that when coupled with an expendable upper stage provides affordable, available and responsive space lift for 3,000-pound class spacecraft into low Earth orbit. Reusable boosters with aircraft-like operations provide a breakthrough in space lift costs for this payload class, enabling new generations of lower cost, innovative and more resilient spacecraft.”

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12 responses to “Northrop Grumman XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane”

  1. dogstar29 says:
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    Maybe to be launched from the new Virgin spaceport at Roosevelt Roads, PR?

  2. Ben Russell-Gough says:
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    Hmm… Maybe this is what X-37B was ultimately working towards? I’ve got the feeling that the AAA+ programs are going to be moving away from the expendable paradigm towards reusable cores at least for satellite launch. SpaceX get credit for being the only commercial developer who anticipated this.

    • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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      Really? Because Blue Origin, Xcor, Kistler, Andrews, etc. never said anything about reusable launch vehicles for commercial purposes?

      • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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        The big difference is, of course, that SpaceX have managed to reach the point of actual flight articles. It’s unfair, of course, on these earlier visionaries but it does show that there has to also be some kind of business plan in mind to bring the concept forward.

        • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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          Blue Origin, for one, has flown large scale booster recovery demonstrators. But you didn’t say “actual flight articles”, you said “only commercial developer who anticipated this”. Clearly there were other commercial developers who have anticipated booster recovery, some of them well before SpaceX was a a player.
          Your original statement was in error.

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      The X-37B is an entirely different thing altogether. it is a small technology testbed spaceplane. the XS-1 competition is for a reusable first stage booster rocket.

  3. duheagle says:
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    The article is silent on the question of whether that “aircraft-like” landing is going to be powered or a get-it-right-the-first-time-or-you’re-toast” glide ala Shuttle and VG.

    Given the vertical launch and the lack of any obvious air inlets on the concept illustration, it looks to be a pure rocket-powered design. If so, I’m guessing it will have quite limited endurance at Mach 10 within the atmosphere. Hard to see how it could even support level Mach 10 flight at any altitude with significant atmosphere.

    Don’t get me wrong, I hope the thing works if it gets picked as the competition’s winner. But some more details would have been nice.

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      DARPA’s specifications are for a first stage that can reach Mach 10 and then deploy a small rocket that can get a small payload to orbit, then land and be reused within 24 hours with minimal associated costs. it doesn’t need to sustain speeds of Mach 10 (and certainly not at level flight) for any length of time.

      also, the mode of reuse of that first stage, i.e. powered or unpowered landing of the vehicle, is left up to the entrant.

      • duheagle says:
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        The original RFP made it sound like the Mach 10 thing was in addition to, rather than a routine part of, the satellite deployment mission. As satellites are all traveling at up to Mach 25 upon reachung orbit, their launchers are obviously traveling at Mach 10 at some point in their ascent trajectories. I got the idea reading early coverage of the XS-1 project that some kind of sustained Mach 10 endo-atmospheric flight regime was also to be supported. As I find such a capability likely to be of limited future value, I hope you are right and I’m wrong, but that’s not how I read things at the time the XS-1 project was first trotted out by DARPA.

        As to the powered or unpowered landing, I realize it’s builder’s choice. I just wish N-G had said what their choice was.

        • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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          Additional goals for the XS-1 demonstration program are to:
          • Fly ten times in ten days
          • Fly to Mach 10 at least once
          • Launch a representative payload to orbit at least once

          this says to me that it can fly to less than Mach 10 for 9 of the qualification flights, then on one of them, you fly to Mach 10 and launch your payload to orbit.

          “some kind of sustained Mach 10 endo-atmospheric flight regime was also to be supported.”

          there’s no reason for that, it only makes sense if the Mach 10 requirement is just so it can launch the 2nd stage rocket. the RFP just says it has to achieve Mach 10 at least once. i suppose that COULD be in level flight, since it doesn’t specify otherwise, but why would you want to make it any harder than it has to be.

          • duheagle says:
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            why would you want to make it any harder than it has to be.

            I don’t. So far as I know, all current launch vehicles are going a lot slower than Mach 10 when they reach MECO and light off their 2nd stages. That’s why the whole Mach 10 thing in the XS-1 RFP specs always seemed like a tacked-on item from the agenda of someone with enough pull to get it included. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what’s required to just make a reusable horizontal landing 1st stage vehicle that can launch small and medium satellites. It strikes me as a pointless complication.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            the requirement to reach Mach 10 means you can use a much smaller second stage to get your payload to orbit. it’s that much less work for it to do.