DARPA chooses Boeing to collaborate on next-generation spaceplane
NewsMay 24, 2017
ARLINGTON, Va. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has chosen Boeing to collaborate on designing, building, and testing a technology demonstration vehicle for the Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program.
DARPA envisions the XS-1 program as a fully reusable unmanned vehicle, approximately the size of a business jet, which would take off vertically like a rocket and fly at hypersonic speeds. The vehicle would be launched with no external boosters, powered only by self-contained cryogenic propellants. As the craft -- dubbed the Phantom Express -- reached a high suborbital altitude, the booster would release an expendable upper stage with the ability to deploy a 1.5-ton satellite to low Earth orbit. The reusable first stage would return to Earth, landing horizontally like an aircraft, and be prepared for the next flight, potentially within hours.
The spaceplane would use the Aerojet Rocketdyne AR-22 engine, a version of the legacy Space Shuttle main engine; the AR-22 is designed to be reusable and operates using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen fuel.
DARPA says that its spaceplane program aims to achieve a capability well out of reach today -- that of launches to low Earth orbit in days, as compared to the months or years of preparation currently needed to get a single satellite into orbit.
