Free falling to safety
a wingless spacecraft, the x -38 is being developed at National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( nasa ), usa, that would work as a rescue vehicle for a space station. The spacecraft can fly back to the Earth from space and land like an aircraft on a runway. Engineers at nasa 's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, say the craft would be of immense use for the upcoming international space station. The construction of the station is expected to begin in space by next year.
A series of test flights of the spacecraft has started at nasa 's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Scientists plan to fly the unpiloted fibreglass x -38 prototype by the end of 1997 to test its aerodynamics and an unusual parafoil landing system designed to guide it back to the landing site.
According to John Muratore, manager of the x -38 project at the Johnson Space Center, crew-return vehicle designed to carry six astronauts, would be able to stay at a space station for nea-rly three years with little maintenance. The craft can also be modified to work as a 'space tug' that would leave a station to pick up a payload launched by another rocket and bring it back to the station. The researchers say it would cost nearly us $500 million to develop four spacecrafts, which are expected to be fully operational by the year 2003.
The x -38 design is a modified version of x-24 a, a bulb-shaped vehicle that resembles a drop with fins. The piloted craft flew 28 times from 1969 to 1971 and proved that a returning space vehicle could land on a runway without engine power. The idea was to build a rocket-boosted spacecraft that could not have the additional weight and complexity of wings.
The concept of lifting the spacecraft is based on a principle to gain aerodynamic lift from its body shape instead of from wings. Muratore says that once the spacecraft is developed, it could also be used for other purposes after slight modifications. The European Space Agency is also extending its support to nasa 's project. The agency mainly interested in the project because it plans to developing a crew transfer vehicle - a spacecraft that could carry crew to and from the space station and perform other jobs in the orbit.
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