Delta Clipper-Experimental Fact SheetOffice of External Affairs
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
Washington, D.C. 20301-7100
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization's Single Stage Rocket Technology
(SSRT) program is chartered to demonstrate the practicality, reliability, operability
and cost efficiency of a fully reusable, rapid turnaround single stage rocket, with
the ultimate goal of aircraft-like operations of reusable launch vehicles (RLVs).
The program is focused on using existing technologies and systems to demonstrate
the feasibility of building both suborbital and orbital RLVs which are able to fly
into space, return to the launch site, and be serviced and ready for the next mission
within three days. Such a suborbital RLV could potentially support many of BMDO's
planned suborbital system tests and experiments.
As part of the program, BMDO has built an experimental suborbital launch vehicle,
officially designated the SX-1 (Spaceplane Experimental), but known as the DC-X (Delta
Clipper-Experimental). Flight testing is scheduled to be conducted in mid 1993 at
White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico. The DC-X is designed to take off
vertically and return to land in the same attitude. The DC-X is not designed as an
operational vehicle capable of achieving orbital flight. Its purpose is to test the
feasibility of both suborbital and orbital RLVs.
Following completion of Phase I, a two-year $60 million Phase II contract was competitively awarded to McDonnell Douglas Aerospace, Huntington Beach, Calif., in August 1991.
The program was subsequently restructured and focused on building the DC-X and enabling suborbital RLVs for potential use by BMDO. The DC-X design emphasizes simplified ground and flight operations, vehicle maintenance, rapid turnaround, and operational characteristics that are also relevant to future orbital vehicles. For example, the highly automated control center for this system is manned by only three people: two for flight operations and one for ground operations and servicing.
Successful completion of the DC-X testing in mid 1993 will form the basis for
a Phase III "go/no go" decision by the Department of Defense to develop
a follow-on Advanced Technology Demonstrator for support of flight tests and experiments.
If a decision is made to proceed with Phase III, the program will be transferred
to another agency.
A systems ground test facility has been activated at NASA's White Sands Test Facility (WSTF), and a launch and recovery site at WSMR. The completed DC-X vehicle is undergoing testing on a modified propulsion test stand at the WSTF prior to flight testing at WSMR. Maintenance and ground support techniques required for the flight test phase of the program will be tested, evaluated and refined at WSTF.
The aircraft-like flight test program, planned to start in mid 1993, will begin with low altitude hover flights, gradually increasing in altitude and duration, and lead to suborbital flights to approximately 18,000 feet.
Throughout the DC-X ground and flight test series, demonstration of low cost operations, vehicle operability, reliability, supportability and maintainability directly linked to follow-on operational vehicles are the prime factors for determining program success.