Spacecraft News Dyna-Soar Killed

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30338, 14 January 1964, Page 7

Spacecraft News Dyna-Soar Killed

The X-20 Dyna-Soar project has been chopped under the axe of economy. Last month the United States Defence Secretary, Mr McNamara, terminated the project on the grounds that the X-20 manned space glider could do very little that the Gemini spacecraft could not do. This is true insofar as vehicle capability is concerned—in fact the two-man Gemini capsule can perform some tasks in space which the one-man Dyna-Soar space glider cannot. For example, Gemini can lock on to an Agena satellite and use it to provide propulsion. But Dyna-Soar was to have wings and by dynamic soaring (hence its name) on reentry would have explored a vast regime of high speed, high altitude flight denied to Gemini. Cancellation of Dyna-Soar does not mean that all interest in hypersonic flight at near-orbital speeds will cease. Several of the large aerospace companies are deepiy concerned with the problems to be encountered and have been nurturing plans for larger winged space gliders capable of ferrying men and materials to and from space stations. The Lockheed Company , is studying a 15-ton. six-man

space shuttle very similar to Dyna-Soar in shape, while the Martin Company has been devoting years of research to a “lifting-body” spacecraft which has its fuselage shaped to provide the aerodynamic lift normally given by wings. Martin engineers claim that by designing the body to do the job of a wing, precious pounds of weight are saved and the space craft is less complex. It can, therefore, carry greater payloads into or out of orbit than winged craft of the same weight. The lifting body spaceglider would have a rocket motor for manoeuvering in space to make a rendezvous and for retrofire to drop out of orbit. The rocket motor and fuel tanks would then be jettisoned and the glider could return to any landing field of the pilot’s choosing within an area 8000 miles wide and more than 10,000 miles long. The addition of engines for subsonic flight in the atmosphere would give the space glider even greater manoeuverability. The Martin design would ferry up to 12 men to and from space and -would be reuseable—ablative panels, burned away during re-entry, would be replaced and the vehicle mated to a new rocket booster for another flight into space.