DRYDEN HOME TO ROCKET PLANE?

Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer

With Air Force officials in New Mexico putting the squeeze on NASA, the space agency is considering relocating its X-34 rocket plane to Dryden Flight Research Center, officials said Monday.

Officials at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico have told NASA to relocate the X-34 flight test program from its White Sands range, saying it would interfere with training missions. New Mexico's congressional delegation, a fan of the program, is asking the Air Force to reconsider its decision.

While waiting to hear back from the Air Force, NASA is beginning to look at relocating the experimental program to Edwards, said Gary Payton, NASA's associate administrator for aeronautics and space transportation technology.

``What I've told Orbital Sciences Corp. (the X-34 prime contractor) to do is to stop activities that go to White Sands, but don't spend money on going to Edwards,'' Payton said in a telephone interview from NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Relocating the program to Edwards would not mean much in terms of number of workers, because only a couple of dozen employees are involved, officials said.

However, bringing the X-34 to Edwards would reinforce the Antelope Valley's standing as America's test site for X-planes and space vehicles, a position established with the Chuck Yeager's X-1 in 1947 and emphasized with the X-15 in the 1960s and the space shuttles in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Antelope Valley is already host to the X-33, which is intended to test technologies for a reusable spaceship; the X-38, a test vehicle for a space station lifeboat; and the X-37, the first test vehicle under NASA's Future X program to demonstrate technologies to dramatically reduce the cost of reusable space launches.

New Mexico's five-member congressional delegation wrote a letter to Air Force Acting Secretary F. Whitten Peters protesting the proposed move to Edwards.

``We believe the local officials have worked out a satisfactory plan to address the training concerns of Holloman AFB,'' the New Mexico delegation wrote. ``We fail to understand how the existence of eight 10-minute flights per year will interfere with flight training operations at WSMR (White Sands Missile Range).''

An Air Force response to the request to reconsider Holloman is expected within a few days. If Holloman still refuses to host the flight test program, it will take a few weeks to determine how to get the work done at Edwards, Payton said.

Controlled by onboard computers and about the size of an F-16 fighter, the X-34 is a rocket-powered aircraft expected to be capable of flying eight times the speed of sound. The X-34 is intended to test technologies that could be used in future spaceships.

An X-34 airframe is now at Dryden for vibration and flight certification tests. The X-34 airframe was shipped from Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, Va., last month in two separate trucks - one for the fuselage and another for the wing section.

The airframe will be assembled at Dryden and then go through ground vibration tests to ensure there are no potentially hazardous vibrations during flight.

The ground tests will also involve the X-34's launch aircraft, the L-1011, which Orbital uses for its Pegasus space booster. The L-1011 will be tested both alone and mated with the X-34 airframe.

After the ground tests, the L-1011 will carry the X-34 on six or seven flights to gain Federal Aviation Administration approval for future flights.

Once certified, a second X-34 will be shipped either to Edwards or Holloman's White Sands Missile Range for the first of 27 planned flight tests. Later tests will be conducted at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

The X-34 is an unpiloted, 58.3-foot-long, single-engine, winged rocket. The X-34 is expected to reach speeds of about 5,600 mph and reach altitudes of 250,000 feet.

Plans call for the X-34 to be taken aloft by the L-1011 and released. After a free fall of about five seconds, the X-34's engine would then power the rocket to its planned speed and altitude. After the engine burnout, the X-34 would dump its excess propellent and then make an autonomous approach and landing.

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PHOTO (Color) The X-34 rocket plane is shown in a computer animation.