SECRET AIRCRAFT ENCOMPASSES QUALITIES OF HIGH-SPEED LAUNCHER FOR
SPACECRAFT,by William B. Scott/Lancaster, Calif.

Sightings of a large aircraft in Georgia and California during the
last two years have raised new questions about whether the vehicle is a
high-speed replacement for the Lockheed SR-71.

It is not known if the "XB-70-like" aircraft is the vehicle popularly
referred to as "Aurora" or the "pulser" that leaves "donuts-on-a-rope"
contrails. Its size, configuration and features suggest the aircraft
may have multiple missions.

Observer descriptions, discussions with industry experts, and
Aviation Week & Space Technology analyses suggest that the large
aircraft could be the first of a two-stage system designed to launch
small payloads into orbit. Released at Mach 6-8 from a raised section
on the aircraft's aft deck, an unmanned vehicle could accelerate to
orbital velocities, then release a small satellite in space. It also
could remain in the atmosphere or fly a suborbital flight path,
carrying its own suite of reconnaissance sensors.

This concept, at present, has not been confirmed by any U.S.
government agency or military service. However, aeronautics and space
experts agreed the concept has considerable merit, particularly for
orbiting payloads essential to national security.

Such a two-stage-to-orbit concept is hardly a new one, having surfaced
as a candidate U.S. launch system in the 1950s. It also is the basis
for Germany's Saenger design. Advancements in strong, lightweight and
heat-tolerant materials--as well as breakthroughs in hybrid propulsion
systems--may have made the two-stage concept attractive for
limited-weight, critical payloads.

According to William R. Laidlaw, a former vice president of advanced
systems for North American Rockwell and current founder/CEO of
Aerotest, early studies defined the characteristics of such an
aircraft. He said a high-speed, air-breathing launch vehicle would
tend to be long, with a high fineness ratio; have a broad, delta
planform; probably have wingtip-mounted vertical fins; use a
multi-cycle propulsion system capable of reaching the Mach 6-8 regine,
and be large enough to carry adequate hydrogen, methane or other
advanced, high-energy, cryogenic fuel.


EARLY STUDIES CONSISTENT
Aviation Week analyses are supported by possibly related events and
deduction, such as:

X A long, slender aerodynamic shape with rounded chines was loaded into
an Air Force C-5 transport at Lockheed's Burbank, Calif., "Skunk Works"
facility on the night of Jan. 6. Estimated to be 65-75 ft. long and 10
ft. high, it was light-colored and had a distinctive, blended-shape aft
cross section. The C-5 departed Burbank at 11:15pm PST and was cleared
to Boeing Field near Seattle, Wash.

X A quick-reaction project to develop a two-stage-to-orbit vehicle
would have been highly attractive to the Defense Dept. after the
shuttle Challenger accident and a subsequent series of expendable
launch vehicle failures in the mid-to-late 1980s. A concerned Defense
Dept. may have embraced a means of assuring access to space, especially
if it were an on-demand, flexible launch system.

X Air Force officials who canceled the SR-71 program said "satellites
can do the job" of strategic reconnaissance. That position appeared to
ignore the predictable and inflexible nature of satellites' fixed
orbits. A high-speed aircraft/spacecraft system that could orbit a
small satelliite carrying a suite of reconnaissance sensors and
communication equipment would overcome that detraction, however. If
the second-stage vehicle were fairly "stealthy," the satellite could
be launched covertly into any orbit at the most desirable time. This
approach also would preclude risks associated with in-atmospere
aircraft overflying hostile areas.

X Several spacecraft manufacturers have developed small satellites--or
"small-sats"--that would be compatible with a two-stage launch system.
Until recently, none would acknowledge they had built any, though
(AW&ST June 15, p. 94). TRW, Ball Aerospace and others may have
developed a stable of covert flexible spacecraft that can be
configured with a variety of sensors, then launched into orbit on short
notice.

X Senior National Aero-Space Plane program engineers have admitted
privately that their studies indicate a two-stage-to-orbit system is
technically feasible and would be more economical than a single-stage
system. "Given what we know now, we'd prefer to go with a high-speed
aircraft and launch something from it to get into orbit," one engineer
said. This concept would save about one third the fuel weight required
of a single-stage NASP system, he said.

X Several years ago, the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory's "Beta"
program was based on a two-stage-to-orbit system that uses a "Concorde-
like" vehicle to launch a "miniature delta-shaped" craft into space, an
engineer familiar with the effort said. For reasons still
unclear, the aircraft was not built, he said.

HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS
A high-speed, two-stage launch concept is a logical descendant of the
M-12/D-21A system Lockheed's Skunk Works developed under the
A-12/YF-12/SR-71 "Blackbird" programs. A version of the Central
Intelligence Agency's A-12 reconnaissance aircraft, the M-12 was
designed to carry and launch a single 12,000lb. D-21A ramjet drone at
80,000 ft. and Mach 3. Two of the M-12 "motherships" were built.

The A-12--originally designated the A-11 by Lockheed--was a single-seat
predecessor of the two-man SR-71. It first flew in April, 1962. The
YF-12A, designed as a Mach 3 interceptor armed with air-to-air missles,
provided valuable flight test data for the follow-on SR-71 aircraft.
All three Blackbird models had similar external planforms.

Although one aircraft was lost during a test, several D-21A drones
were launced from the M-12 at speeds over Mach 3, proving that
high-speed separation is feasible. Another experiment demonstrated
that the D-21A drone could operate its engines while still attached to
the carrier aircraft, augmenting M-12 thrust during acceleration to
high launch speeds. The drone engine was fueled from the M-12's tanks
during this phase.

Financial analysts recently concluded that "Aurora" and other
classified programs at Lockheed grew from $65 million in 1987 to $400
million last year, and could reach $475 million by 1993, according to
Lawrence M. Harris, a Kemper Securities analyst.

Harris estimated that "Aurora" could be operational in 1995, and may
have made its first flight in 1989.

Employment at Lockheed's Advanced Development Co. has fluctuated
somewhat in recent years, but, now at 4,600 employees, has remained
higher than can be explained by residual TR-1, F-117A and F-22 work.

Billy,
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