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AEROSPACE : NASA Taps 3 Southland Firms : Design: Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell will vie to build shuttle replacement.

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has chosen three Southland aerospace companies as finalists in the development of a less-expensive replacement for the space shuttle.

The X-33 program, as NASA calls the project, is potentially worth $650 million if a single space-launch vehicle is built, NASA officials said. The program is designed to turn over detailed development of future launch systems to private industry.

The three X-33 finalists announced last week include teams led by Lockheed Advanced Development Co.’s Skunk Works in Palmdale, McDonnell Douglas Aerospace in Huntington Beach and Rockwell International Corp. in Seal Beach, which now manufactures the space shuttle.

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“What we’ve really done is contract for three different concepts,” said Frederick Bachtrel, deputy director of NASA’s space transportation division. “The exciting thing about this is that, engineering-wise, it will be a step forward. And it will get the government out of the launch-vehicle business.”

During the next 15 months, NASA will provide $24 million to help each finalist develop a detailed design that NASA hopes will serve as a prototype for a fully reusable vehicle that could be relaunched faster and more cheaply than the current orbiter, in the process stimulating more commercial payloads.

The shuttle takes 80 days to prepare for relaunch, compared to seven days or less for the Rockwell and Lockheed designs. The X-33 could be launched as early as 2004, with a fully reusable vehicle to follow from that design, Bachtrel said.

A key NASA requirement for the X-33 is a single-stage launch vehicle, which, unlike the current shuttle, uses two external engines and a main fuel tank that are all ejected during launch. All three finalists’ proposals fit that bill. Also, each concept vehicle has the capacity to fly without a pilot, and each is fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.

The most radical concept for the X-33 may originate with McDonnell Douglas Aerospace, which is working with Boeing of Seattle.

Although McDonnell spokesman Keith Takahashi said the company will announce an official concept within a few months, he said it will most likely be based on the Delta Clipper Experimental (DCX) vehicle now being tested in White Sands, N.M.

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The DCX is a 40-foot-tall vehicle with vertical takeoff and landing capabilities.

“It’s like those old science fiction movies where it takes off and lands on its own plumes,” Takahashi said. “We’ve flown it five times already, and it looks very promising.”

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