The DC-X, short for Delta Clipper or Delta Clipper Experimental, was an uncrewed prototype of a reusable single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle built by McDonnell Douglas in conjunction with the United States Department of Defense's Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) from 1991 to 1993. Starting 1994 until 1995, testing continued through funding of the US civil space agency NASA. In 1996, the DC-X technology was completely transferred to NASA, which upgraded the design for improved performance to create the DC-XA. After a test flight of DC-XA in 1996 resulted in a fire, the project was canceled.
Construction of the DC-X started in 1991 at McDonnell Douglas' Huntington Beach facility.[10] The aeroshell was custom-constructed by Scaled Composites, but the majority of the spacecraft was built from commercial off-the-shelf parts, including the engines and flight control systems.
The DC-X first flew, for 59 seconds, on 18 August 1993; it was claimed that it was the first time a rocket had landed vertically on Earth. It flew two more flights 11 September and 30 September, when funding ran out as a side effect of the winding down of the SDIO program; in addition the program was considered far-fetched by detractors. Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad was at the ground-based controls for some flights. These tests were conducted at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
NASA agreed to take on the program after the last DC-X flight in 1995. In contrast to the original concept of the DC-X demonstrator, NASA applied a series of major upgrades to test new technologies. In particular, the oxygen tank was replaced by a lightweight (alloy 1460 equivalent of alloy 2219) aluminium-lithium alloy tank from Russia, and the hydrogen tank by a graphite-epoxy composite design. The control system was likewise improved. The upgraded vehicle was called the DC-XA, renamed the Clipper Advanced/Clipper Graham, and resumed flight in 1996.
The original DC-X was built in 21 months for a cost of $60 million. This is equivalent to $115 million in present-day terms. Several engineers who worked on the DC-X were hired by Blue Origin, and their New Shepard vehicle was inspired by the DC-X design. The DC-X provided inspiration for many elements of Armadillo Aerospace's, Masten Space Systems's, and TGV Rockets's spacecraft designs. Some NASA engineers have noted that the DC-X could provide a solution for a crewed Mars lander. Had a DC-type craft been developed that operated as an SSTO in Earth's gravity well, even if with only a minimum 4–6 crew capacity, variants of it might prove extremely capable for both Mars and Moon missions. Such a variant's basic operation would have to be "reversed"; from taking off and then landing, to landing first then taking off.
source text : wikipedia.org
link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
