News Boeing's PHANTOM EXPRESS

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by publiusr, May 26, 2017.

  1. publiusr

    publiusr Admiral Admiral

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    publiusr
    Boeing won the contract to build the DARPA spaceplane:
    http://spacenews.com/darpa-selects-boeing-for-spaceplane-project/
    http://spaceflight101.com/boeing-darpa-reveal-phantom-express-space-plane-design/

    The Phantom Express vehicle will take off vertically, with an upper stage carrying a satellite payload mounted on top of the fuselage. After releasing the upper stage, the suborbital vehicle would glide back to a runway landing. Phantom Express is powered by an Aerojet Rocketdyne engine designated the AR-22, based on the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME). This is similar to the engines on SLS--which is also ramping up:
    https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/05/maf-push-sls-full-thrust/

    Sounds like something like the Rockwell X-33 concept will fly, after all:
    http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/x/x33rock.jpg
    http://home.earthlink.net/~chadslattery/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/x-33trio.jpg

    One individual wondered if you could place the X-37 mil-space-plane on it.

    That won't happen as "whatever is used as a 2nd stage will need 5-6(?) km/s of delta-v to achieve orbit. " Discussion here: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32829.580

    VECTOR gets the upper stage--to be launched piggyback: https://twitter.com/vectorspacesys/status/867518742552432640

    Price? $146M by accounts. A new X-plane, it seems

    DARPA also looks to be working on ways to design things more simply:
    http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2017-05-17

    I hope they share this with others.

    Heck, some Trek Blueprinters might be helped by this.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2017