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18A

Flight 40 - 18A

Launch Date:
?
Launch Vehicle:
US Space Shuttle
Elements:
US Crew Return Vehicle 1
  • Crew Return Vehicle attached to the station provides additional 7-person crew return capability added to already existing 3-person Soyuz crew return capability.

During the first years of the International Space Station's life on orbit, a Russian Soyuz capsule will always be present to provide crewmembers with the means to evacuate the station quickly. But work is well under way on development of the new emergency crew return lifeboat for the International Space Station.

X-38 Project Manager John Muratore says the X-38 project has two real purposes.

 

"The first is to prove that we can build a low-cost crew return vehicle for the Space Station," says Muratore. "The second, more general purpose is to prove that we can build human spacecraft for an order of magnitude less cost than ever before. The original crew return vehicle project was costed as much as 2 billion dollars back in the late 1980's but under the X-38 project we're going to build and test-fly two prototypes in space for 90 million dollars."

The vehicle's construction remains economical because of several factors. The X-38 uses a lifting body design already proven and tested in experimental vehicles of the 1970's. Additionally, parts of the X-38 can be bought over the counter, using existing technology rather than technology invented from scratch - a marked difference from past NASA spacecraft.

"Once this vehicle is attached to the Space Station, let's say we have to fly away from the Space Station and go get something and bring it back. For example, we might choose to launch a cargo that could not fly itself to the Station. If we wanted, we could fly away and get the cargo and bring it back. We could modify this design after the basic lifeboat function has been developed so it could fly away and do utility jobs. It's sort of a pickup truck for the Space Station."