Development of Reusable Rocket Delayed

One of NASA’s most technologically ambitious space projects, an eventual replacement of the space shuttle, has suffered a critical setback that could push back a test flight of the experimental vehicle an additional seven months, Lockheed Martin Corp. executives confirmed Monday.

The $1.2-billion development of the X-33 rocket plane, overseen by Lockheed Martin’s secretive Skunk Works plant in Palmdale, jumped off track Dec. 22 in a manufacturing snafu at the defense firm’s Sunnyvale, Calif., plant, according to sources familiar with the project. The inner wall of one of the plane’s two hydrogen fuel tanks, made with graphite-reinforced plastic, separated while it was being bonded at 350 degrees, they said.

While technical setbacks and the accompanying cost overruns are par for the course in space projects, the apparent manufacturing error has cropped up in a program NASA views as essential to its future.

The space agency has laid a huge bet on Lockheed Martin, committing $941 million to X-33 development, and invested in it the nation’s hopes for seizing leadership of the commercial satellite launch industry from the French Ariane rocket. NASA officials would like to replace the space shuttle fleet after 2012, which means the prototype for its successor can ill afford lengthy delays.

“This is as significant to the future of what we do in space as the lunar program,” said Gene Austin, NASA’s program director for the project. “This is absolutely critical to this country’s future in space. I hope we can [stick to] schedule this time.”

The X-33 represents the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s third attempt to build a low-cost, reusable launch vehicle. In the early 1990s, the agency failed in its effort to build the National Aerospace Plane with a ramjet engine, and the agency’s space shuttle developed in the 1970s turned out to be a high-cost answer for getting to orbit.

At stake for Lockheed Martin now is a chance to dominate an emerging marketplace--Earth’s orbit--with a cheap, efficient means of delivering people and cargo to space. The X-33 would incorporate a range of new technologies, including a lightweight composite airframe, an advanced heat shield and a highly efficient rocket engine that has never flown before.

The Bethesda, Md.-based defense contractor has conceived the X-33 as a half-scale prototype of a space vehicle it calls Venture Star. But even if it can turn the NASA-funded prototype into a space-worthy craft, Lockheed Martin must raise the cash to build it.

With an eye toward seeking investment partners to shoulder the $5-billion cost of building two Venture Star vehicles, Lockheed Martin executives have solicited applications from more than a dozen states to become the launch site, all while advertising that the craft will be operational in 2004.

The firm is also expected to seek loan guarantees from the federal government to secure its own investment.

At the outset of the program, Lockheed Martin planned to fly the computer-piloted prototype this March from Edwards Air Force Base. But a series of technical problems now have pushed back the test flight schedule more than a year, with a first flight expected in the summer of 2000. That in turn means development of the full-scale version could be slowed.

Lockheed Martin executives said they can still meet their deadline.

“It might be right about the end of 2004,” said Jerry J. Rising, vice president for the X-33 and the Venture Star at Skunk Works.

While the prototype is crucial for NASA, Lockheed Martin and other contractors have invested heavily in it as well. Along with its industry partners, the aerospace and defense giant has ponied up $231 million as a “reserve,” which it has already had to tap to develop the X-33 hydrogen tanks.

Even before the latest technical glitch, engineers noted that an X-33 tank leaked in tests.

Lockheed engineers are still analyzing the separated skin of the 28-foot-long tank wall, but Rising said it appeared the material was not properly bonded by its manufacturer, Alliant Techsystems Inc.

Executives have declined to estimate the potential cost of the new delay, which is expected to run in the millions of dollars.

Lockheed Martin has already slashed overtime for everyone in the project except those building a new composite inner wall for the hydrogen tank, Rising said.

NASA officials have refused to pay for overruns on the project.

“It’s going to have to be absorbed by somebody--and not the government,” agency spokesman Jim Cast said.

Lockheed and its partners already have had to absorb a $36-million overrun associated with a five-month delay in the delivery of the X-33’s revolutionary rocket engine, developed by Boeing Co.’s Rocketdyne division in Canoga Park.

Lockheed executives also confirmed that the X-33 will be unable to meet NASA’s original program goal of flying at the speed of Mach 15, or more than 11,000 mph, and instead will travel at Mach 13.8.

While Wall Street has focused on Lockheed Martin’s short-term troubles in its outlook for the year, including fewer-than-expected deliveries of the C-130J transport plane, industry observers insist the prototype holds the key to its position in the space market.

The X-33’s overseers in Washington expressed disappointment with the latest delay but noted that it is the only plan NASA is funding to succeed the space shuttle.

“The X-33 is one of the toughest things we’ve ever done in space,” one Capitol Hill source said. “It would’ve been nice if we had enough money to fund spare tanks so we wouldn’t have to lose seven months. But we have to go forward.”