Posted on 03/05/2006 7:23:35 PM PST by anymouse
SPACEPLANE SHELVED?
For 16 years, Aviation Week & Space Technology has investigated myriad sightings of a two-stage-to-orbit system that could place a small military spaceplane in orbit. Considerable evidence supports the existence of such a highly classified system, and top Pentagon officials have hinted that it's "out there," but iron-clad confirmation that meets AW&ST standards has remained elusive. Now facing the possibility that this innovative "Blackstar" system may have been shelved, we elected to share what we've learned about it with our readers, rather than let an intriguing technological breakthrough vanish into "black world" history, known to only a few insiders. U.S. intelligence agencies may have quietly mothballed a highly classified two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane system designed in the 1980s for reconnaissance, satellite-insertion and, possibly, weapons delivery. It could be a victim of shrinking federal budgets strained by war costs, or it may not have met performance or operational goals.
This two-vehicle "Blackstar" carrier/orbiter system may have been declared operational during the 1990s.
A large "mothership," closely resembling the U.S. Air Force's historic XB-70 supersonic bomber, carries the orbital component conformally under its fuselage, accelerating to supersonic speeds at high altitude before dropping the spaceplane. The orbiter's engines fire and boost the vehicle into space. If mission requirements dictate, the spaceplane can either reach low Earth orbit or remain suborbital.
The manned orbiter's primary military advantage would be surprise overflight. There would be no forewarning of its presence, prior to the first orbit, allowing ground targets to be imaged before they could be hidden. In contrast, satellite orbits are predictable enough that activities having intelligence value can be scheduled to avoid overflights.
Exactly what missions the Blackstar system may have been designed for and built to accomplish are as yet unconfirmed, but U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) officers and contractors have been toying with similar spaceplane-operational concepts for years. Besides reconnaissance, they call for inserting small satellites into orbit, and either retrieving or servicing other spacecraft. Conceivably, such a vehicle could serve as an anti-satellite or space-to-ground weapons-delivery platform, as well.
Once a Blackstar orbiter reenters the atmosphere, it can land horizontally at almost any location having a sufficiently long runway. So far, observed spaceplane landings have been reported at Hurlburt AFB, Fla.; Kadena AB, Okinawa; and Holloman AFB, N.M.
The spaceplane is capable of carrying an advanced imaging suite that features 1-meter-aperture adaptive optics with an integral sodium-ion-sensing laser. By compensating in real-time for atmospheric turbulence-caused aberrations sensed by the laser, the system is capable of acquiring very detailed images of ground targets or in-space objects, according to industry officials familiar with the package.
THE SPACEPLANE'S SMALL CARGO or "Q-bay" also could be configured to deliver specialized microsatellites to low Earth orbit or, perhaps, be fitted with no-warhead hypervelocity weapons--what military visionaries have called "rods from god." Launched from the fringes of space, these high-Mach weapons could destroy deeply buried bunkers and weapons facilities.
While frequently the subject of advanced studies, such as the Air Force's "Spacecast 2020," actual development and employment of a transatmospheric spaceplane have not been confirmed officially (AW&ST Sept. 5, 1994, p. 101). However, many sightings of both an XB-70-like carrier and a spaceplane have been reported, primarily in the western U.S. Only once have they been seen together, though.
On Oct. 4, 1998, the carrier aircraft was spotted flying over Salt Lake City at about 2:35 p.m. local time. James Petty, the president of JP Rocket Engine Co., saw a small, highly swept-winged vehicle nestled under the belly of the XB-70-like aircraft. The vehicle appeared to be climbing slowly on a west-southwest heading. The sky was clear enough to see both vehicles' leading edges, which Petty described as a dark gray or black color.
For whatever reason, top military space commanders apparently have never been "briefed-in"--never told of the Blackstar system's existence--even though these are the "warfighters" who might need to employ a spaceplane in combat. Consequently, the most likely user is an intelligence agency. The National Reconnaissance Office may have played a role in the program, but former senior NRO officials have denied any knowledge of it.
One Pentagon official suggests that the Blackstar system was "owned" and operated by a team of aerospace contractors, ensuring government leaders' plausible deniability. When asked about the system, they could honestly say, "we don't have anything like that."
Aerospace industry contractors suggest that a top secret Blackstar system could explain why Pentagon leaders readily offered the Air Force's nascent unclassified spaceplane project, the briefly resurrected SR-71 program and the Army's anti-satellite program for elimination from budgets in the late 1990s. At the time, an industry official said, "if we're flying a spaceplane, it makes sense to kill these cover programs and stop wasting money on things we can already do."
U.S. and European aerospace companies have pushed two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) spaceplane concepts for decades. Most large U.S. airframe manufacturers designed spaceplane-type vehicles during the 1950s and '60s, and XB-70 program documents include a concept for carrying and launching a low-Earth orbiter. Two former test pilots and executives for North American Aviation (later, Rockwell) said the company had a technically viable plan for such a system in the 1950s (AW&ST Aug. 24, 1992, p. 25).
Boeing is believed to be one of several major aerospace companies involved in the Blackstar program. On Oct. 14, 1986, Boeing filed a U.S. patent application for an advanced two-stage space transportation system. Patent No. 4,802,639, awarded on Feb. 7, 1989, details how a small orbiter could be air-dropped from the belly of a large delta-winged carrier at Mach 3.3 and 103,800-ft. altitude. The spaceplane would be boosted into orbit by its own propulsion system, perform an intended mission, then glide back to a horizontal landing. Although drawings of aircraft planforms in the Boeing patent differ from those of the Blackstar vehicles spotted at several USAF bases, the concepts are strikingly similar.
One logical explanation given for why a Blackstar system is developed says that, after the shuttle Challenger disaster in January 1986, and a subsequent string of expendable-booster failures, Pentagon leaders were stunned to learn they no longer had "assured access to space." Suddenly, the U.S. needed a means to orbit satellites necessary to keep tabs on its Cold War adversaries.
A team of contractors apparently stepped forward, offering to build a quick-reaction TSTO system in record time. The system could ensure on-demand overflight reconnaissance/surveillance from low Earth orbit, and would require minimal development time. Tons of material--including long-lead structural items--for a third XB-70 Valkyrie had been stored in California warehouses years before, and a wealth of data from the X-20 DynaSoar military spaceplane program was readily available for application to a modern orbiter (see following articles).
DYNASOAR WAS TERMINATED shortly after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, after $430 million had been spent on the spaceplane's development. Political opposition and the fatal crash of XB-70 No. 2 on June 8, 1966, contributed to the bomber program's being canceled before Air Vehicle No. 3 could be built. However, at one time, there had been plans to mate the two vehicles.
In XB-70 Valkyrie: The Ride to Valhalla, Jeannette Remak and Joe Ventolo, Jr., wrote: "One version of the B-70 could have been used as a recoverable booster system to launch things into low-Earth orbit. . . . The DynaSoar program, the first effort by the [U.S.] to use a manned boost-glider to fly in near-orbital space and return, was considered in this context in November 1959. The B-70 was to carry the 10,000-lb. DynaSoar glider and a 40,000-lb. liquid rocket booster to 70,000 ft. and release them while traveling at Mach 3. With this lofty start, the booster could then push the glider into its final 300-mi. orbit."
The two-stage U.S. spaceplane concept apparently has undergone several iterations since then, but the basic idea remained--launch a manned boost-glide vehicle from an XB-70-like platform (AW&ST Dec. 24, 1990, p. 48; Sept. 24, 1990, p. 28). An aerospace industry source said the Air Force once used the "Blackstar" moniker, but others suggested the intelligence community referred to this TSTO combination as the "SR-3/XOV" system. The SR-3 is the large, XB-70-like carrier aircraft, while the small orbital vehicles drop-launched at high speed are called XOV-1, XOV-2 and so forth. At one time, the XOV designator meant "experimental orbital vehicle."
Based on information gleaned from multiple industry sources, the SR-3 features:
*A roughly 200-ft.-long, clipped-delta-winged planform resembling that of the North American Aviation XB-70 trisonic bomber. The forward fuselage is believed to be more oval-shaped than was depicted in a 1992 artist's rendering (AW&ST Aug. 24, 1992, p. 23).
*Canards that extend from the forward fuselage. These lifting surfaces may sweep both fore and aft to compensate for large center-of-gravity changes after dropping the spaceplane, based on multiple sighting reports.
*Large, outward-canted vertical tail surfaces at the clipped-delta's wingtips.
*At least four engine exhaust ports, grouped as two well-separated banks on either side of the aircraft centerline.
*Very loud engines. One other classified military aircraft may have used the same type of powerplant.
*Operation at supersonic speeds and altitudes up to 90,000 ft.
During the system's development cycle, two types of spaceplane orbiters may have been flown. Both were a blended wing/fuselage lifting-body design, but differed in size. The smaller version was about 60-65 ft. long and may have been unmanned or carried a crew of two, some say. Industry engineers said this technology demonstrator was "a very successful program."
The larger orbiter is reportedly 97.5 ft. long, has a highly swept, blended wing/body planform and a short vertical fin. This bulky fin apparently doubles as a buried pylon for conformal carriage of the spaceplane beneath the large SR-3. The "Q-bay" for transporting an optics-system pallet or other payloads may be located aft of the cockpit, with payload doors on top of the fuselage.
Outboard sections of the spaceplane's wing/body cant slightly downward, possibly for shock-wave control and compression lift at high speeds while in the atmosphere, whether on ascent or reentry. The only visible control surfaces are flap- or drag-type panels on the wing's trailing edge, one section on each side of the stubby vertical fin. A relatively large, spade-shaped section forward of the cockpit--which gives the orbiter a "shark-nose" appearance--may provide some pitch stability, as well.
The orbiter's belly appears to be contoured with channels, riblets or "strakelets" that direct airflow to engine inlets and help dissipate aerodynamic heating. These shallow channels may direct air to a complex system of internal, advanced composite-material ducts, according to an engineer who says he helped build one version of the orbiter in the early 1990s. Air is directed to what is believed to be aerospike engines similar to those once planned for use on the NASA/Lockheed Martin X-33.
A former Lockheed Skunk Works official once expressed confidence in the X-33 prototype orbiter's powerplants, noting that "they have history." Whether this implies the aerospikes had flown before, perhaps on an XOV, or simply referred to ground test-firings is unknown. The X-33 was a prototype of what was to be the single-stage-to-orbit Venture Star (AW&ST Nov. 10, 1997, p. 50).
Technicians who worked at a McDonnell Douglas plant in St. Louis in the late 1980s and early 1990s said much of the XOV's structure was made of advanced composite materials. Some wing skin panels measured 40 ft. long and 16 ft. wide, yet were only 3/8 in. to 1/2 in. thick.
"Two people could pick them up; they were very light," one said. These panels were stacked in a sandwich structure to obtain the required thickness, then machined to shape. Although much of the structure was honeycomb, it was "incredibly strong, and would handle very high temperatures," he noted. Inside skin surfaces "were ungodly complicated," though.
WORK ON THE ORBITER moved at a relatively slow pace until a "fuel breakthrough" was made, workers were told. Then, from 1990 through 1991, "we lived out there. It was a madhouse," a technician said. The new fuel was believed to be a boron-based gel having the consistency of toothpaste and high-energy characteristics, but occupying less volume than other fuels.
Regardless of where they land, spaceplane orbiters usually are retrieved by one or more "fat" C-5 Galaxy transports. Three of the oversized aircraft were modified with 8-ft.-wide "chipmunk cheek" extensions on each side of the cargo compartment aft of the nose hinge point; an extra six-wheel set of landing gear that partially retracts up against the aft fuselage, forward of the ramp; a shortened upper deck, and two internal harness/cradle supports. These alterations originally were made to enable carriage of dome-topped containers measuring 61.2 ft. long, 17.2 ft. wide (maximum) and 16.7 ft. tall at the highest point. The containers normally protected satellites during transit to launch sites.
In 1994, NASA sources confirmed that two of the C-5s (Tail Nos. 00503 and 00504) were listed on NASA's inventory--although the aircraft did not "officially" exist, according to the agency's public records. Both transports apparently were deployed only upon orders from the administrator's office. The third oversized C-5 once had a red "CL" on its tail, and supposedly was used by the Central Intelligence Agency. All three C-5s may have been retired in recent years, according to a NASA contractor.
CRITICS ARGUE that there was never enough money hidden in intelligence and military budgets to fund a small fleet of spaceplanes and carrier aircraft. However, those who worked on the system's development at several contractor sites say they charged time-and-materials costs to a number of well-funded programs. Lockheed was the lead contractor for Blackstar orbiters being fabricated at McDonnell Douglas in the early 1990s, and workers there typically logged their time against a specific Lockheed charge number associated with that project. But their time might also have been charged to the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP) and the Navy's A-12 fighter accounts, they say. Both multibillion-dollar programs were canceled with little but technology development gains to show for massive expenditures.
"At first, [supervisors] said we were working on NASP, but this thing never looked like anything the public was shown," a McDonnell Douglas technician who worked in the company's "black hole" facility said. "Later, we were just told, 'Clock it to NASP and don't ask questions.' We never did anything that was really NASP--and money was never a problem."
Whether the Blackstar system was ever declared operational or not is unknown, but several orbiters may have flown over the years. A former program manager at a major aerospace company once declared, "There's no question; Lockheed is flying a two-stage space vehicle."
Interestingly, after both Lockheed and Boeing pulled out of the NASP competition (or were "eliminated") in the 1980s, they may have collaborated to develop the two-stage-to-orbit Blackstar system under a highly classified "fast-track" program. However, many other contractors' "deep-black" teams probably also were involved in order to bring the nation's best expertise to bear on what must have been daunting technical challenges.
Space and aviation ping.
XB-70 is out of service. The components that was to be flying with it should be dead as well.
Hey....looky over here.....ignore the men behind the curtain....
Typical story for Aviation Leak and Spy Technology...sometimes I wonder if Art Bell is in their editorial staff.
This is an XB-70 with an X15. I have always thought the XB-70 looked like something to base a concept like this on.
I'm in Okinawa. I can guarantee this space plane never landed at Kadena AB. Such an event would be noticed immediately by the Okinawan base-watchers, who can see all of the runway and flightline area from hills outside the base.
Now that's a rare post of which I actually read EVERY WORD.
True but it does stimulate ones imagination
... And Hurlburt Field's runway is too short and it's entire length is clearly visable from a 4-lane US Highway 98. Not the place you'd want something "secret" to land on.
-Traveler
And I never saw either of the SR-71's that weren't there in 67 take off at night.
ping
Secret flying things? Imagine that.
I guess anti-gravity technology powered by zero-point energy inductors has made a lot of systems obsolete.
Just like Art Bell's show. LOL
Well, there's always Duke Field or anyone of a rather large number of Eglin Auxiliary Fields in the area.
This is damned interesting. I have read speculative reports on such aircraft since the late 1980s. If it existed and has been shelved, then it is because we have a cooler toy to take its place.
Why do you think all of those Mars probes were lost? The CIA has been there for decades. They were getting too close to being discovered, and blasted the probes with Mars-based rail guns. I mean, c'mon, did anybody really believe that "meters instead of feet" story...
Dang. What a horrible time to run out of tin foil...
sailing the dirac sea, are we?
To build a TSTO system in record time, you would throw out the ability to glide back in for a landing. Instead, you'd use an Apollo-era parachute recovery.
In fact, you'd use off-the-shelf technology as much as possible. You'd re-use existing carrier aircraft, existing orbital engines, parachute recovery, avionics, propellant, etc.
Such a classified system wouldn't be seen over Salt Lake City, either.
Wow.
I immediately think of the silent heroes on this project if it was indeed as operational as the article implies. I hope that one day their names are known and that nobody was killed on this project.
No, but if you were going to recover it at sea there would be thousands of witnesses (on the carrier, the destroyers, helicopters, etc), and there is absolutely no way in the world that you could keep it secret.
Not to mention the fact that a vehicle reentering the atmosphere blows a huge hole in the sky, and that would be noticeable all over the world.
Not buying it.
"Dr. Sänger, please pick up the red courtesy phone....."
Art Bell is to busy with fake global warming to be talking
about anything interesting.
The B-52 was also studied as a launch platform for the X-20:
Regardless of whether or not this hypothetical TSTO was actually built, the basic idea continues, such as the Andrews Space "Peregrine" aircraft-based launch system:
And the X-42 demonstrator, capable of lobbing either a military CAV, or as a reusable first stage for smallsat launch:
The XB-70 was too good a plane to entirely disappear, and it didnt, it just went black.
But the whole thing is silly. The United States has no enemies that need spying on and no need at all for classified weapons programs. None. Never had.
Heh heh...
> To build a TSTO system in record time, you would throw out the ability to glide back in for a landing. Instead, you'd use an Apollo-era parachute recovery.
Ah, no. To build a TSTO like this in record time, you'd throw out the bureaocrats. You'd use Marines and Special Forces to guard the engineers and techs, shooting on sight anyone with so much as a whiff of red tape about them.
No, I meant what I said. You'd throw out feel-good ego options such as "glided recovery."
A TSTO craft doesn't need wings, just a parachute.
> A TSTO craft doesn't need wings, just a parachute.
Rather depends on the mission. If you intend to recover it from roughly where you launched it (if it's a one-orbit recon or bombardment bird), you need a recoverable second stage with good hypersonic L/D. You might use parachutes for terminal recovery, but you'd still used a lifting vehicle for crossrange. for a vehicle liek this, drag anjd size constraints are goign to drive the second stage towards being relatively long and thin; and that geometry right there gains you somethign in hypersonic lift. Wings or a lifting fuselage are a relatively small addition at that point.
"And I never saw either of the SR-71's that weren't there in 67 take off at night."
I'm puzzled. What does that have to do with the space plane? Everyone in Okinawa knew about the Habus based at Kadena.
No, wings or a lifting body add weight and complexity to the process...something that you would forego if you were in a hurry or on a budget...simply because you don't need to glide, you just need a parachute (which can land precisely where you want it).
 NASA / Reuters
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The XB-70 had the IR signature of a supernova, with a radar signature to match. You're just not going to fly that thing at speed with nobody noticing. It was a beautiful plane, but it was obsolete almost as soon as it was built.
Furthermore, the Dynasoar program didn't go black either. It was cancelled. I know one of the engineers that worked on that project. That bird was never built.
If you only knew what's going on in the AG field...as to the MEG/zero point energy field, the problem is PEOPLE, you don't just give whole atomic bombs worth of energy to everyone...Actually, back in the 1980's a small slice of the aerospace community had the EMSL concepts all worked out(ElectroMagnetic Space Launch). The best idea was the quenched superconducting rings that got the sabot/10 kg projectile up to 5 mps in a 300' to 500' cannon-length. You probably don't know that one pound in LEO is worth(mv^2/2 + mgh)all of 4 KWH, about 40 cents at 10 cents/KWH. That's 16 times cheaper than a 39 cent stamp for a 1 ounce letter. NASA charges $20,000+ to deliver that same # to LEO. Thus in the late 80s the USSR collapsed, and with it SDI/star wars funding...and NASA killed EMSL, no business(esp with such a horrendous mark-up)ever funds the competition.
WTF????
bump
I didn't see the 71s many times in 69-70 at Kadena. If they had landed and taken of from there I would hav thought they were the most graceful flying machines ever made. But all we had when I was there were strange model F-4s. The gremmies made jokes about the funny F-4s.
> simply because you don't need to glide...
Yes, you do. A military system like this would need considerable crossrange. A second stage, unlike the wholly irrelevant Stardust casule, would need to be able to maneuver aerodynamically; unlike Starduct, it would not have months in which to make course corrections, but instead would have to maneuver aerodynamically in order to land where you want it to. Parachutes are only good for a couple of miles of crossrange. A lifting configuration, even a very simple one, can add several *hundred*. And a sapsule configuration like Stardust woudl be *astonishingly* useless for the TSTO; you can't make the whole second stage capsule-shaped (the first stage airplane would never be able to haul it into the sky... too much drag and where woudl it fit).
Blunt capsules are a great shape for cheap recoverable payloads. But they suck for launch vehicles. For a recoverable stage, you'll want something vastly more aerodynamic.
[Tons of ore, ounces of gold]...
That's completely backwards. Technology yes, components, no. Who has been manufacturing the specialized fuel? How about the tires? Bearings? Spare parts? Who has been overhauling the engines? Where did they get the parts for that?
There is no way that there is an XB-70 flying. There were two prototypes. It never even went into production. It was never tooled up. There are no specialized tools to build the spare parts with. It was cancelled. It's gone.
Personally, I think that this article is a set-up for an April Fool's joke. Let's see what they print on the 1st.
If so, they've been setting it up since 1990 or so. Av Weeks' "Brilliant Buzzard" has been discussed before, as far back as at least 1992.
This also served as the basis for Testor's 1/72 scale "SR-75 Penetrator" model circa 1993.
It's not a new concept, just more info.
I see no advantage in having a crew.
There is nothing they can do that couldn't be done remotely, and the environmental/life-support systems would only add weight and take up valuable space.
This program, if shelved, is likely for budgetary reasons. It still makes sense to have a 'quick-reaction' orbital recon and micro-satellite delivery system.
Particularly one that is robust enough to be deployed in shell-game fashion to make a Chinese/Russian pre-emption more difficult.
Similarly today the Iraq war is sucking up a lot, for the amount of 'bang' we're getting there. That, in conjunction with Treasury Secretary John Snow's requesting Congress permit more debt be sold, i.e., 'raising the debt limit from $8.2 trillion'.
It is clear that the feds are getting seriously strapped for cash again...and hence penny-wise pound foolish "management" is making decisions again. Likely dictating the mothballing of the SR-3...assuming it really exists. The SR-3 is exactly the kind of concept that Rumsfeld would have pushed for. Survivable space access has been a pet concern of his since the mid-90s. For it to be mothballed, assuming it wasn't for technical problems, it would basically have to be over his dead body...just like the MX was decommissioned. Rumsfeld stalled, and quite appropriately, after the stupid Treaty of Moscow, was signed. It took a presidential directive issued to him in person. Meanwhile, the Soviets are keeping their massive SS-18's emplaced and online up through 2017.
Rather than kill off this program, I really wonder why they aren't looking to realize large economies in Iraq...and Dubai. Time to end the dollar diplomacy and get skinflinty with the 'allies of convenience.' Dubai should be paying for the privilege of being defended by us. Ditto Iraq. The free ride is over.
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