SPACE LIFEBOAT IN VALLEY RESHAPED CRAFT BROUGHT BACK FOR MORE FLIGHT TESTING.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - The original X-38 prototype, reshaped to more closely resemble a proposed lifeboat for the space station, returned Tuesday to Edwards for additional flight tests.

Designed as V-131R, the X-38 was flown to NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has scheduled more tests simulating the space station lifeboat's return to Earth.

The X-38 was reshaped to conform with the latest design of the proposed crew-return vehicle. The revamped design, which features a more bulbous top, would also make it possible to use the vehicle to transport crew or cargo into orbit by launching it with an Ariane 5 space booster, said Bob Baron, Dryden's X-38 project manager.

For flight tests, the X-38 will be taken aloft by a modified B-52 and dropped. NASA plans a series of six to eight flight tests at altitudes ranging from 25,000 feet to 45,000 feet.

``It's going to be one step at a time, and we'll build up,'' Baron said.

The X-38 was first flown at Dryden in March 1998. Next came flights with a second X-38 aircraft, featuring more electronic equipment. The second X-38 completed its flights this year and was shipped to an air show in Berlin last month before going into storage at Johnson Space Center.

NASA is planning to take another X-38 aircraft into space aboard a shuttle in 2002 for a flight test.

The goal of the program is to design and build a spacecraft capable of flying itself back to Earth in any emergency on the space station.

The emergency spacecraft would have enough life support for about nine hours of flight, allowing the crew to choose among several potential landing sites.

The craft would deploy a large parafoil and steer itself to a soft landing.

The wedge-shaped V-131R is about 24 feet long, about 80 percent of the size NASA expects for the actual space station lifeboat. The prototype craft was built by Scaled Composites in Mojave, the firm established by Burt Rutan, who designed Voyager, the aircraft that flew around the world on one tank of gas in 1986.