NASA also released details of a series of tests and plans to use of three X-34 research craft in a graduated series of flight trials. The space agency also said it was in the process of accommodating experimenters that wished to use the suborbital craft to host research payloads during the space portion of its test flights.
John London, program manager of NASAs Pathfinder experimental space transportation project, said that the $100 million pricetag for the entire X-34 program, including 25 test flights using three different test craft, was about the cost of a single flight of todays throw-away rockets.
"The Pathfinder series of research craft will be working hard to fulfill the vision of cheaper access to space," London said. "The X-34 will be the workhorse."
London said the prime objective of the X-34 project was to demonstrate low-cost, rapid operations. The 58 foot long, 27 foot wide winged space launcher is a test vehicle that will not orbit but will fly to the edge of space and return to landing sites at Dryden, White Sands Missile range, Holloman Air Base in New Mexico, and eventually Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The KSC test flights will attempt to demonstrate routine space launches and landings of the winged craft in poor weather conditions, such as fog and rain. Todays space shuttles are unable to fly in rain, primarily due to the potential damage of the rain to the crafts fragile ceramic thermal tiles that protect it during reentry through the Earths atmosphere.
The X-34 will test new types of heat shields that would be more durable and easier to maintain than those in use aboard the shuttles.
To conduct the full suborbital test program, three X-34 vehicles will be built. Vehicle A-1, now undergoing taxi tests in California, will be upgraded to support unpowered flight tests at White Sands.
Vehicle A-2 will be used in a second series of test flights using the NASA-developed Fastrac rocket engine. Those tests will take place at Dryden. Vehicle A-2 will then be shipped to Kennedy Space Center for the all-weather flight testing.
A third vehicle, A-3, will be used to complete the test program. These flights will see the X-34 and experimental payloads fly to the edge of space up to 250,000 feet high and speeds of up to MACH 8, or eight times the speed of sound.
Future follow-on versions of the X-34 may reduce the cost of payloads into space from todays $10,000 per pound to $1,000 and serve as advanced reusable launch vehicles.
NASA said Tuesday that if experimenters wanted to use the X-34 for suborbital research flights beyond the currently-planned test series, negotiations could be conducted to arrive at a cost and development time frame.
Currently, there are a series of interested customers for the rocketplane, including two experiments from the European Space Agency. These researchers are using the craft for experiments that would be combined with the test flight program at no cost to the space agency.
"There are no paying customers" yet for future flights, officials said, and experiments are secondary to the projects space transportation objectives.
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