NASA Dryden News Release 97-10
March 6, 1997

Surveying of the X-33 launch site is underway at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) in preparation for ground-breaking at the location, currently scheduled for Oct. 1, 1997. The Environmental Impact Statement for the launch site will be completed by Sept. 30 this year, prior to the beginning of the launch facility construction.

Sverdrup Corporation, the X-33 team's launch facility contractor, is surveying the site, located at the Air Force's Phillips Laboratory's Propulsion Directorate. Construction of the launch pad and facilities is expected to be complete by Sept. 9, 1998. Launch facility activation, which includes verification of the launch pad fueling system, is scheduled to be complete by Oct. 1, 1998.

Sverdrup Corporation has a long history of launch and support facility construction, having participated in the construction of facilities at NASA's Stennis Space Center, Vandenburg AFB, Arnold Engineering Development Center, and as one of the original designers of the launch facilities at Kennedy Space Center.

Currently, rollout of the X-33 from Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works is scheduled for Nov. 1, 1998. The Skunk Works will design, build, and conduct the first test flight of the X-33 test vehicle by March 1999, and conduct at least fifteen flights by December 1999. NASA has budgeted $941 million for the project through 1999. Lockheed Martin and its partners will invest $220 million in the X-33 design.

The X-33 will integrate and demonstrate all the technologies in a scale version that would be needed for industry to build a full-size RLV. The X-33 will be about half the size of a full-scale RLV. It will be a remotely-piloted, sub-orbital vehicle, capable of altitudes up to 50 miles and speeds of Mach 15.

The Lockheed Martin design is based on a lifting body shape with a radical new aerospike engine and a rugged metallic thermal protection system which would be launched vertically like a rocket and land horizontally like an airplane. The X-33 test vehicle is the most advanced part of a three-pronged RLV program to develop and demonstrate the kinds of technologies required by industry to build a new launch system that will provide truly affordable and reliable access to space. The X-33 program is being conducted under a Cooperative Agreement between NASA and industry, not a conventional customer/supplier contract.