spacetoday.net: DARPA to take over X-37 program

Posted: Wed, Sep 15, 2004, 6:44 PM ET (2244 GMT)
X-37 illustration (NASA/MSFC)

NASA is turning over control of the X-37 RLV technology demonstrator program to DARPA, NASA officials confirmed Wednesday. Space News reported Wednesday that NASA has ceded management of the X-37 program to DARPA, although the space agency will remain involved in the effort. Earlier in the week NASA officials said the program had been transferred to another agency, but refused to identify it. Speculation about the program grew last week after a report from the Mojave Desert News, a small California newspaper, that Scaled Composites would fly the X-37 on Scaled's White Knight aircraft, the same plane used by SpaceShipOne. The article also claimed that control of the program had been turned over to an unspecified agency. NASA officials later said that they had not specified the use of White Knight over any other aircraft in its discussions with Scaled. The X-37 program started in 1998 as a partnership between NASA and Boeing, with some funding from the Air Force, to develop an unmanned winged vehicle to demonstrate technologies for use on future full-scale RLVs. After a series of atmospheric tests, the X-37 was to be launched into orbit on the space shuttle or an expendable vehicle to perform on-orbit tests before returning to Earth; the fate of any such flight remains uncertain.