NASA B-52 takesoff on RWY 04

 This NASA F-18 served as a chase and photo aircraft.
 

 EDWARDS, Calif. - The world's largest parafoil carried an advanced X-38
      test craft to a touchdown Thursday at NASA's Dryden Flight Research
      Center at Edwards, Calif.

      This was the first flight test of the final configuration of the X-38
      atmospheric test vehicle that included a rounded aft end, identical to the
      shape of the X-38 space flight vehicle now under construction at Johnson
      Space Center, Houston, Texas. A space test of an uncrewed X-38 is
      planned for August 2002 when it will be released from a Space Shuttle to
      fly back to Earth.

      Released from under the wing of NASA's B-52 aircraft at an altitude of
      36,500 feet, the X-38 had a flight control problem that resulted in a
      360-degree roll following the drop from the B-52. As scheduled, at 24
      seconds into the flight the X-38's 80-foot diameter drogue parachute was
      deployed and the vehicle recovered from the roll.

      The flight test also featured a 7,500-square-foot parafoil with a surface
      area more than one and a half times that of the wings of a 747 jumbo jet. A
      second problem occurred at 19,000 feet when the parafoil began its
      deployment while the X-38 was in a nose up attitude. However, the
      parafoil deployed without damage and flew to a safe touchdown less than
      half a mile from the original target. Touchdown speed was less than 40
      miles an hour. "Today our design faced a test. Most systems worked well,
      some didn't," said X-38 program manager John Muratore. "We're going to
      take the results of this test, improve the design, and we will be back to test
      it again. That's the nature of flight testing," he added.

      The X-38 is a prototype "lifeboat" for the International Space Station,
      designed to carry up to seven passengers home from orbit in an
      emergency. The project combines proven technologies -- a shape
      borrowed from a 1970s Air Force lifting body project -- with some of the
      most cutting-edge aerospace technology available today, such as the
      most powerful electric motors ever used to control a spacecraft.

      An innovative approach is enabling the X-38 to be developed at a tenth of
      the cost of past estimates for such a project. Although the United States
      leads the development of the X-38, international space agencies also are
      participating. Contributing nations include Germany, Belgium, Italy, the
      Netherlands, France, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

      Throughout the rest of this year and 2001, increasingly complex, uncrewed
      X-38 atmospheric flight tests will continue at Dryden.

 (To see the STS-92 landing photos click here!)

 (To see the STS-92 launch photos click here!)