Jim Cast

Headquarters, Washington, DC July 11, 1996

(Phone: 202/358-1779)

June Malone
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL
(Phone: 205/544-0034)

RELEASE: 96-135

NASA SELECTS FIVE ORGANIZATIONS TO DEVELOP

TECHNOLOGIES FOR AN AIR-BREATHING ROCKET ENGINE

NASA�s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, has

selected five teams to develop technologies for air-breathing
rocket engines. This is the next step toward developing new
rocket propulsion technologies that could take NASA into the
next century.

The selected organizations are Gen Corp Aerojet,

Sacramento, CA; Kaiser Marquardt, Van Nuys, CA; Pennsylvania
State University, State College, PA; Rockwell
Aerospace/Rocketdyne, Canoga Park, CA; and United
Technologies/Pratt and Whitney, West Palm Beach, FL.

Called a rocket-based combined cycle propulsion system,

this new propulsion system would use an engine that consumes
atmospheric oxygen and then use a stored oxidizer when beyond
the Earth's atmosphere.

NASA's current Space Shuttle propulsion system uses an

engine that consumes stored oxidizer exclusively. By reducing
the amount of stored oxidizer and improving the engine
performance, the weight and cost of the system could be
significantly reduced.

"These awards will enable NASA to pursue multiple options

for combined cycle air breathing propulsion technologies,"
according to Uwe Hueter, manager for the rocket-based combined
cycle program at Marshall.

Hueter also said, "I�m looking forward to beginning the

ground testing of the critical technologies and obtaining the
needed data to evaluate the various engine concepts. This will
be the first step toward one of our major program milestones--a
proof of concept flight demonstration by the year 2000."

This activity is part of NASA's Advanced Space

Transportation program, which is managed by Marshall. These
awards focus on technological advances in propulsion for the
future not addressed by the Reusable Launch Vehicle program and
that have the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of
access to space.

The next step is for the five organizations and NASA to

negotiate contracts. That process is expected to be complete
within 60 days. Performance of work should be completed within
24 months, after finalizing the details of each company's
contract with NASA.

The current effort is envisioned to be the first of three

phases leading to flight demonstrations of the technology for
primary launch vehicle propulsion. This first phase will
provide initial verification of proposed concepts through
ground demonstration of combined rocket and air breathing space
propulsion technologies. This phase also provides preliminary
designs for flight. Using the most promising concepts
identified in ground tests, the second phase will provide
flight experiments to demonstrate critical propulsion
technologies in the flight environment by the year 2000. In
the third phase, NASA anticipates the first flight of a small-
scale integrated vehicle and propulsion system, planned for
2002; a large-scale integrated vehicle and propulsion system
flight is planned for 2005.

NASA anticipates the total value of the awards for the

first phase of this program to be approximately $20 million.

-end-

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