DARPA awards phase 2 space plane contracts
The competition heats up: The second phase contracts in the development of a reusable space plane have been awarded by DARPA.
DARPA has awarded $6.5 million each to three companies for developmental design work, including Boeing (in partnership with Blue Origin), Northrop Grumman (in partnership with Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic), and Masten Space Science Systems (in partnership with XCOR Aerospace).
The requirements are that the plane fly 10 times in 10 days, reach Mach 10+, put a 3,000 to 5000 pound payload in orbit, and cost less than $5 million per flight. In this new phase, the companies are to deliver finalized designs by 2016, with prototype development to follow.
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The competition heats up: The second phase contracts in the development of a reusable space plane have been awarded by DARPA.
DARPA has awarded $6.5 million each to three companies for developmental design work, including Boeing (in partnership with Blue Origin), Northrop Grumman (in partnership with Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic), and Masten Space Science Systems (in partnership with XCOR Aerospace).
The requirements are that the plane fly 10 times in 10 days, reach Mach 10+, put a 3,000 to 5000 pound payload in orbit, and cost less than $5 million per flight. In this new phase, the companies are to deliver finalized designs by 2016, with prototype development to follow.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
What about Sierra Nevada Corp and their Dream Chaser? How does the DC fit into this profile?
Worked on a number of those programs.
Stated of as a means of finally getting cheap access to space. Then it was down-graded to a demonstration program. Then it morphed into a technology development program. Then everyone took an early lunch.
Do not have much hope for this.
It may depend upon how serious DARPA is to have this technology. When their self-driving vehicle competition (Grand Challenge) failed, a decade ago, they held another competition, where they had a winner. Now, people from the winning team are working at Google to develop a commercial self-driving car.
On the other hand, the Grand Challenge was encouraged by an award to the winner, but this one is a series of contracts, so this could be just another way of “spreading around the wealth.”
What I find most challenging on this competition is the 10 flights in 10 days. This means that the winner must launch, orbit, release its payload, return to the launch site, and be back on the pad and launching again in 26 hours. Consistently. With no delays.
So far, the quickest that I have ever heard was SpaceX putting a rocket on a pad and having it ready for launch in a 24-hour period (engines may have been fired for a couple of seconds).