» Read the X-37/ X-40 Demonstrator factsheet
The decision on what new launch vehicles NASA plans to use in the coming decades is rapidly coming into focus. In some ways these launchers will be new - yet they will also look very familiar using hardware and concepts that have long and well-established flight histories.
The innovative carrier plane used to air launch SpaceShipOne has a new mission. At the Mojave, California inland spaceport, the White Knight mothership has been involved in fit and high-speed taxi checks with a new passenger – the X-37, an unpiloted, reusable spaceplane.
Northrop Grumman Corp. and Boeing Co. yesterday announced plans to team up to design a vehicle to take astronauts back to the moon and even beyond, but they've got to make one stop first - an off-white cinderblock building in Bethpage known as the Grumman History Center.
WASHINGTON — NASA has transferred its X-37 technology demonstration program to the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which plans to go ahead with atmospheric drop tests of the prototype space plane next year.