X-33 CRUISING TOWARD FINISH; TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH PROGRAM ABOUT 80% COMPLETE.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

The X-33 program is about 80 percent complete and on schedule to complete its goals of testing new technologies for a future spaceship by the end of 2000, program officials told Congress.

The X-33, an unpiloted rocket plane being built by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, is scheduled to fly in mid-2000 and complete 15 flight tests by December 2000.

All of the program goals, which are geared toward developing a reusable spaceship called VentureStar, will be met, officials told the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics.

``It is still a tough schedule, with the most challenging phase of testing now under way,'' said Jerry Rising, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works vice president of reusable launch vehicles.

``We are doing everything we can to ensure that we meet this schedule and begin flight tests next summer.''

The hearing, held Wednesday, came just weeks after the General Accounting Office, Congress' auditing arm, released a report saying technical problems have caused the program costs to increase by more than $317 million.

The technical problems have caused the program to miss performance goals and its original launch date - initially set for this year.

The taxpayers' share of the X-33 program will be $1.29 billion, instead of the original $912.4 million, according to the GAO report.

Gary Payton, NASA's deputy associate administrator for space transportation technology, said the cooperative agreement between NASA and the Lockheed Martin X-33 team, in which private industry shares in the development cost, has resulted in savings for the government.

Lockheed Martin and its partners have invested over $350 million in the program.

The industry team has also absorbed overhead costs of about $240 million that would have been passed onto the government under conventional NASA contracts, officials said.

While there have been schedule delays, notably from the manufacturing of a liquid hydrogen fuel tank, the program is still on track to complete its goals by the time the cooperative agreement ends in December 2000, officials said.

``The process of resolving such difficulties has illuminated several critical technical issues and has substantially increased our understanding of the capabilities of the technologies involved,'' Payton said, according to testimony posted by the House subcommittee.

``The significant insights gained in this process will bear fruit for years to come,'' he said.

During the flight-test program, the X-33 is expected to be able to fly from Edwards Air Force Base to the Army's Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah in 14 minutes. It will fly to Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana in 24 minutes.

The X-33 is a half-scale version of the planned VentureStar spacecraft. VentureStar is intended to reduce the cost of getting a payload into space from $10,000 to $1,000 a pound.

Such a cost reduction will open up space for commercial opportunities ranging from delivering communication satellites into orbit to perhaps even paving the way for space tourism, officials say.

VentureStar is expected to begin flying in 2005.

Originally, VentureStar was to look exactly like the X-33, only twice as large. Program officials told Congress the VentureStar was redesigned to have an external payload bay, rather than carry cargo inside the spaceship.

The move allows Lockheed Martin to package VentureStar's fuel tanks and other internal systems more efficiently, officials said.

Cargo will be held inside a 53-foot long, 15-foot diameter canister. VentureStar models with the new configuration are now being tested in a wind tunnel.

In the meantime, testing of the first of four engines built for the X-33 program is about to begin at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The first firing will last less than five seconds and is part of a series of 41 firings of the four engines.

The first of two liquid hydrogen tanks is at NASA's Huntsville Space Flight Center in Alabama for stress and pressure tests. The 29-foot long, 4,600-pound tank is designed to carry 29,000 gallons of fuel.

The construction of the second tank is complete.

That tank is expected to be shipped from Lockheed Martin's Missile and Space unit in Sunnyvale, Calif. to Huntsville this month.

In addition to carrying fuel, the two tanks make up about half of the X-33's airframe.

The titanium avionics bay was installed in the X-33 in Palmdale. The avionics bay will house the X-33's control system, including three redundant mission computers, communications gear, navigation equipment and 28-volt and 270-volt power supplies.

The X-33's landing gear, wiring harnesses, reaction control system and fuel-feed lines have been installed.

Five of six segments of software that will control the X-33's flight have been delivered.

The sixth segment, which controls approaches and landings for the X-33, is undergoing tests.