National Aero-Space Plane: A Technology Development and Demonstration Program to Build the X-30.

Abstract

The National Aero-Space Plane (NASP) Program is a $3.3 billion joint Department of Defense (DOD)/National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) technology development and demonstration program to provide a technological basis for future hypersonic flight vehicles by developing enabling technologies. The program plans to build and test the X-30 experimental flight vehicle to validate these technologies. The X-30 is being designed to take off horizontally from a conventional runway, reach hypersonic speeds of up to Mach 25 (25 times the speed of sound), attain low earth orbit, and return to land on a conventional runway. This report describes the NASP Program and provides a status of the X-30's technological development.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 1988
Accession Number
ADA192698

Entities

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircraft Industry
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computer Programs
  • Congress
  • Control Systems
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Hypersonic Aircraft
  • Law
  • Materials Processing
  • Research Facilities
  • Space Transportation
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Test Facilities
  • Wind Tunnels

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering.
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

  • Hypersonics
  • Space
  • Space - Satellites