REDONDO BEACH, Calif. - Northrop Grumman Corp, along with Scaled Composits 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.
The company is defining its concept for XS-1 under a 13-month, phase one contract valued at $3.9 million. In addition to low-cost launch, the XS-1 would serve as a test-bed for a new generation of hypersonic aircraft.
A key program goal is to fly 10 times in 10 days using a minimal ground crew and infrastructure. Reusable aircraft-like operations would help reduce military and commercial light spacecraft launch costs by a factor of 10 from current launch costs in this payload class.
To complement its aircraft, spacecraft and autonomous systems capabilities, Northrop Grumman has teamed with Scaled Composites of Mojave, which will lead fabrication and assembly, and Virgin Galactic, the privately-funded spaceline, which will head commercial spaceplane operations and transition.
The design will emphasize aircraft-like operations, including: - Clean pad launch using a transporter erector launcher, minimal infrastructure and ground crew - Highly autonomous flight operations that leverage Northrop Grumman's unmanned aircraft systems experience - Aircraft-like horizontal landing and recovery on standard runways
DARPA awarded contracts to three teams to work on XS-1 designs. In addition to the Northrop Grumman-led team, Boeing will work with Blue Origin LLC and Masten Space Systems will work with XCOR Aerospace.
The goal of the program is to develop a platform that can make space launch affordable and routine. That has long been a goal of militaries, space agencies, and commercial projects. However, the complexities of space travel have doomed past ventures.
Despite the complexity, the increasing commercialization of space has brought in a number of new players with innovative ideas to make space travel more routine. Many of those new companies are involved with this DARPA study, including Masten, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and Scaled Composites.
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