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NASA Meatball NASA Dryden X-33 Advanced Technology Demonstrator banner
X-33 Proposal by Lockheed Martin - Computer Graphic X-33 Proposal by Lockheed Martin - Computer Graphic

Photo Number: EC96-43631-7
Photo Date: May 1996

Formats: 558x480 JPEG Image (134 KBytes)
1191x1024 JPEG Image (700 KBytes)
2000x1720 JPEG Image (859 KBytes)

Photo
Description:
This artist's rendering depicts the Lockheed Martin X-33. This was to serve as a technology demonstrator of a Single-Stage-To-Orbit (SSTO) Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). NASA selected Lockheed Martin's design on 2 July 1996. The RLV technology program was a cooperative agreement between NASA and industry. The goal of the RLV technology program was to enable significant reductions in the cost of access to space, and to promote the creation and delivery of new space services and other activities that were to improve U.S. economic competitiveness.

Project
Description:
The X-33 was a wedged-shaped subscale technology demonstrator prototype of a potential future Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) that Lockheed Martin had dubbed VentureStar. The company hoped to develop VentureStar early this century. Through demonstration flight and ground research, NASA's X-33 program was to have provided the information needed for industry representatives such as Lockheed Martin to decide whether to proceed with the development of a full-scale, commercial RLV program.

The X-33 design was based on a lifting body shape with two revolutionary "linear aerospike" rocket engines and a rugged metallic thermal protection system. The vehicle would also have used lightweight components and fuel tanks built to conform to the vehicle's outer shape. Time between X-33 flights was planned to be seven days, but the program had hoped it could demonstrate a two-day turnaround between flights during the flight-test phase of the program.

The X-33 was designed as an unpiloted vehicle that would take off vertically like a rocket and land horizontally like an airplane. It was to reach altitudes of up to 50 miles and high hypersonic speeds. The X-33 Program was managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center and will be launched at a special launch site on Edwards Air Force Base. Due to technical problems with the vehicle's composite fuel tanks, the X-33 was cancelled in February 2001.


NASA Photo by: Computer art by J. Frassanito & Associates

Keywords: X-33; Lockheed Martin; VentureStar; RLV; Reusable Launch Vehicle; aerospike rocket engines; Dryden Flight Research Center; Marshall Space Flight Center; lifting bodies


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