TROUBLE FOR DARPA SPACE PROGRAM

Darpa, we have a prob­lem.
The Pentagon’s way-​​out research agency has been try­ing for a while now to make space launches a whole lot cheaper and eas­ier. But one of Darpa’s main space pro­grams — the Responsive Access, Small Cargo and Affordable Launch Vehicle (RASCAL) project — is “not going very well,” agency direc­tor Tony Tether has con­fessed. Darpa will “re-​​evaluate the pro­gram fol­low­ing a design review this autumn,” reports Defense News.
The RASCAL con­cept involves a jet-​​powered car­rier air­craft that would fly beyond the atmos­phere at a steep angle before releas­ing an expend­able rocket designed to carry a satel­lite pay­load to its desired orbit. The air­craft would be equipped with an injec­tion sys­tem that brings oxy­gen and water into its engines to com­pen­sate for the lack of air at extremely high alti­tudes.
During 2002’s DarpaTech con­fer­ence, RASCAL pro­gram man­ager Preston Carter promised flight tests in 2005. Now, it’s pretty clear that’s not hap­pen­ing. And, if and when RASCALs do come down the pike, they ain’t gonna be cheap.
According to Defense News, RASCAL-​​designer Space Launch Corporation says “has not yet deter­mined the pre­cise cost.“
Darpa has run into cost growth prob­lems with the RASCAL pro­gram in the past, because the car­rier air­craft turned out to be more expen­sive than antic­i­pated. Early in the pro­gram, the esti­mated cost of devel­op­ing the air­craft was $88 mil­lion, but the total pro­gram cost now is esti­mated to pass the $100 mil­lion mark in 2005 with sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing still needed to carry through to a flight demon­stra­tion.

September 14th, 2004 | Space | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.