The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said Tuesday it awarded contracts to three companies to begin work on its XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane program.
Contracts were awarded to Boeing [BA] (teaming with Blue Origin), Masten Space Systems (working with XCOR Aerospace) and Northrop Grumman [NOC] (working with Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites). Boeing was awarded a $4 million preliminary design contract, the company said Tuesday in a statement.
Lockheed Martin [LMT] spokesman Gary Napier said Tuesday the company was not selected for a XS-1 Phase 1 award.
The XS-1 program aims to develop a fully-reusable unmanned vehicle that would provide aircraft-like access to space and deploy small satellites to orbit using expendable upper stages. XS-1 seeks to deploy small satellites faster, more affordably and develop technology for next-generation hypersonic vehicles.
XS-1 envisions that a reusable first stage would fly to hypersonic speeds at suborbital altitude. At that point, one or more expendable upper stages would separate and deploy a satellite into low earth orbit (LEO). The reusable first stage would then return to earth before landing and preparing for its next flight. Modular components, durable thermal protection systems and automatic launch, flight and recovery systems should significantly reduce logistical needs, enabling rapid turnaround between flights.
Boeing said it plans to work on a reusable first stage launch vehicle capable of carrying and deploying an upper stage to launch small satellite payloads. Boeing XS-1 Program Manager Will Hampton said Tuesday in a statement the company’s design would allow the autonomous booster to carry the second stage and payload to high altitude and deploy them into space. Hampton said Boeing intends to provide a concept that uses efficient, streamlined ground infrastructure and improves the turnaround time for relaunch.
Northrop Grumman spokesman Bob Bishop said Tuesday the company’s concept is centered around operability and reducibility with the foremost affordability of its concept being “pragmatic reusability.” Reusability, Bishop said, can be a cost-saver or a cost-driver, depending on mission tempo and fixed costs.
Bishop said Northrop Grumman’s concept keeps the fixed costs low by reusing those elements that can be recovered, refurbished and reflown with reasonable fixed costs at a conservative mission tempo. Scaled Composites will conduct demonstration vehicle producibility studies by leveraging expertise in low-cost demonstrator development, Bishop said, while Virgin Galactic will provide transition planning analysis, design and demonstration support.
Key XS-1 technical goals include flying 10 times in 10 days, flying to Mach 10+ at least once and launching a representative small payload to orbit. The program also seeks to reduce cost of access to space for 3,000- to 5,000-pound payloads to less than $5 million per flight.
In Phase 1, DARPA intends to evaluate the technical feasibility and methods for achieving the program’s goals. Tasks currently include: developing the XS-1 demonstration vehicle, identifying and conducting critical risk reduction of core component technologies and processes and developing a technological maturation plan for fabrication and flight test of XS-1 system capabilities.
DARPA expects contractors to explore alternative technical approaches from the perspectives of feasibility, performance, system design and development cost and operational cost. They must also assess potential suitability for near-term transition opportunities to military, civil and commercial users. These opportunities include both launching small payloads per the program goals as well as others, such as supporting future hypersonic testing and a future space access aircraft.