NASA Aborts X-33 Space Plane Project

NASA Aborts X-33 Space Plane Project

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The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has decided to stop funding its experimental space plane program that was the centerpiece of the agency's effort to develop a new generation of vehicles for traveling into orbit.

In an announcement Thursday, NASA said it will not add funds to the X-33 programs, which started in 1996 and have cost one billion US dollars, and the current X-33 program will come to completion when the cooperative agreement between NASA and Lockheed Martin expires on March 31, unless Lockheed Martin chooses to go forward with the program, with its own funds.

The X-33 was a 23-meter-long, unpiloted prototype designed to evolve into a larger vehicle called VentureStar that could carry people and cargo. The wedge-shaped VentureStar would go from launch stand to orbit without using multiple stages or dropping rocket motors and fuel tank like the Space Shuttle.

According to NASA officials, the cost to fly X-33 exceeds the benefits that could be derived from flight demonstration of the vehicles, therefore the decision is tough.