A
robotic space plane was dropped today at high altitude, touching down under
autonomous control, but encountered difficulties on landing and rolled off the
end of a runway.
After
several attempts, weather and technology merged today for a successful drop
test of the X-37, a project of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Space and Intelligence division of the Boeing
Company, with limited support from NASA.
According
to Boeing spokesman, Joe Tedino, the DARPA-sponsored X-37 Approach and
Landing Test Vehicle (ALTV) did conduct its first drop test today.
The
ALTV successfully executed its autonomous landing profile, Tedino told SPACE.com,
“but the vehicle experienced an anomaly after touchdown at Edwards Air Force
Base, California and departed the end of the runway. The ALTV flight team
is assessing the situation and reviewing test data. No further information
is available at this time.”
Nose
gear heavily damaged
A DARPA
statement on the test flight was issued late today to SPACE.com.
According
to Jan Walker of DARPA External Relations the White Knight and ALTV took off
from the Mojave, California airport at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT).
At 7:28 a.m. PDT, White Knight released ALTV within the Edwards Air Force Base
test range airspace at an altitude of 37,000 feet.
After
release, the ALTV touched down on runway 22 at Edwards AFB at 7:31 a.m. PDT.
“ALTV’s
autonomous landing sequence and initial touch-down were flawless and fully
according to plan,” Walker reported, “but ALTV did not stop in the distance
expected and rolled off the end of the runway. ALTV’s steering was nominal for
the full length of the runway.”
The cause
of the incident is not yet known, with the ALTV flight team now engaged in
assessing the situation, Walker said.
“All flight
data has been recovered from ALTV. There was minor damage to ALTV—the nose
landing gear is heavily damaged but the main landing gear and aircraft appear
structurally intact,” Walker explained in the statement.
White Knight mothership
The
early morning drop of the unpiloted X-37 took place high above the desert
landscape in the Mojave, California area. The drop took place at about 37,000
feet, accomplished by taking the space plane skyward, tucked underneath the
Scaled Composites White Knight carrier plane.
White
Knight is operated by Scaled Composites of Mojave, California—the pioneering
firm that used the same mothership to tote SpaceShipOne to altitude for
release. It was SpaceShipOne, also designed by the firm that snagged the $10
million Ansari X Prize by back-to-back piloted suborbital flights in 2004.
The
robotic space plane is classed by DARPA as the Approach and Landing Test
Vehicle and has been at the inland spaceport in Mojave, California since
mid-April of last year.
The
White Knight/X-37 mated combination has undergone a series of taxi and flight
hops in preparation for today’s first release of the vehicle. But the craft’s
first drop test was plagued several times by local bad weather, as well as
telemetry issues between the vehicle and ground controllers.
Early NASA plans
In
the late 1990s, the X-37 was a NASA-sponsored project—part of a planned series
of flight demonstrators dubbed Future X.
At
that time, the Boeing-built X-37 was advertised as an unpiloted, autonomously
operated vehicle designed to conduct on-orbit operations and collect test data
in the Mach 25 (reentry) region of flight.
Early
plans for the X-37 called for it to be ferried to orbit by the space shuttle or
a throw-away launch vehicle. Once free in Earth orbit, the craft would remain
in space for up to 21 days, carrying out a variety of experiments before
reentering the atmosphere and landing on a conventional runway.
Those
plans were eventually cancelled, with NASA transferring its X-37 technology
demonstration program to DARPA in late 2004.
NASA
determined that the X-37 ALTV did not meet the goals of the Vision for Space
Exploration and as a result transferred the program to DARPA. NASA’s only role
in the drop tests is as a technical advisor, despite the large NASA logo on the
vehicle.
advertisement
