Gravely disappointed in NASA’s March decision to cancel an experimental reusable rocket program on which $1.3 billion has already been spent, Lockheed Martin Corp. has vowed not to let its next-generation project fade away.
Company officials have been quietly negotiating with the U.S. Air Force for what analysts believe will need to be hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding to complete construction of the X-33 rocket.
The additional funding could mean a boost for Lockheed’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale and Boeing Co.’s Rocketdyne facility in Canoga Park, both of which have been building components of the rocket. It also could mean work for subcontractors in Orange County.
The 69-foot-tall X-33 was to be the prototype for the VentureStar, a single-stage-to-orbit rocket that would be able to transport satellites and other payloads,and eventually astronauts,to and from space. VentureStar would be roughly twice the size of the X-33, with cost estimates ranging from $1 billion to $8 billion for each rocket.
“We’re not so interested in the X-33, per se,” said Lt. Col. Donald Miles, spokesman for the Air Force Space Command. “We’re interested in the technology and what we can learn from it.”
The Air Force has vowed to search for funding in its fiscal 2003 and 2004 budgets to keep the technology demonstration program alive.
Lockheed officials had begun to consider where the VentureStar would be assembled, with Palmdale-based Skunk Works among the possible locations, company officials said. But no decision has been made.
Meanwhile, Rocketdyne, which built the X-33’s linear aerospike engines at its Canoga Park plant, is pleading with NASA to find some discretionary funding to complete what has so far been successful testing at the agency’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
The X-33 was to be launched from Edwards Air Force Base in 2003 for a 15-minute test flight that would either touch down at Michael Army Air Field in the Utah desert or at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. Contractors hoped the VentureStar would make its inaugural launch by the end of the decade.
But NASA was concerned about problems that arose after planning for the X-33 rocket began in 1996. Chief among the problems was a crack that occurred in a fuel tank made from composite materials during testing in November 1999.
“We have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge from these X-programs,” said Art Stephenson, director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, which oversaw the program. “But one of the things we have learned is that our technology has not yet advanced to the point that we can successfully develop a new reusable launch vehicle that substantially improves safety, reliability and affordability.”
NASA instead has opted to earmark its funding toward multi-staged systems that will be part of the Space Launch Initiative, the next generation of vehicles bringing humans and cargo to the International Space Station, a big focus of work at Boeing’s Huntington Beach facility.
President Bush has stated that funding for NASA would not increase in the next fiscal year.
Despite problems with the X-33, Lockheed officials said they believe they could develop a rocket that could fly orbital missions more cost-efficiently than rockets with detachable parts in the relatively near future if the government would provide the financial support.
Since both of Rocketdyne’s flight engines had successfully completed the first round of hot-fire tests just before NASA’s announcement, the company expected the devices to be ready for installation this month.
But now the engines will likely not be ready until the end of the year, even if NASA appropriates the $3 million that Rocketdyne officials say is needed to complete testing. And NASA officials won’t even say when they will make a decision on the discretionary funding. n
