Jim Cast

Headquarters, Washington, DC December 15, 1995

(Phone: 202/358-1779)

Dom Amatore
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL
(Phone: 205/544-0031)

RELEASE: 95-219

X-33 DRAFT COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT NOTICE ISSUED

NASA has issued a draft Cooperative Agreement Notice

for the design, fabrication and flight test of the X-33
advanced technology demonstrator -- the next step in
development of a new generation of reusable launch vehicles
that will dramatically reduce the cost of putting payloads
into orbit.

"We are seeking comments on the draft notice by Jan.

22, 1996, from industry and any other interested parties,"
said X-33 project manager Gene Austin. "We will consider
these comments before issuing the actual Cooperative
Agreement Notice in April 1996."

The April notice will solicit proposals for a joint

government and industry effort to demonstrate single-stage-
to-orbit technologies by means of the X-33. Three aerospace
companies -- Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, McDonnell Douglas
Aerospace and Rockwell International Corp. -- have been
working with NASA since March on concept definition and
design of the X-33 in Phase I of the program. NASA will
select an industry partner to work with in Phase II, in
which the X-33 will demonstrate vehicle reusability and
operability concepts that assure low cost operations and
rapid processing for reflight. Phase II will culminate in
flight testing of the X-33, beginning in early 1999.

"X-33 is an experimental program intended to determine

if single-stage-to-orbit will work," Austin said. "It will
give government and industry the means to decide by the end
of this decade the feasibility of developing an operational
next-generation reusable launch vehicle. That development,
if it occurs, will be led by industry."
 NASA and industry will share costs during Phase II of
the X-33 program, with NASA budgeting a total of over $900
million in expenditures through 1999. The amount its
industry partner will invest is to be determined.

-more-

-2-

Industry proposals will be due mid-May 1996, and NASA

expects to select its industry partner by July, subject to
approval from the White House to proceed into this next
phase of the X-33 program.

The X-33 draft Cooperative Agreement Notice is

available in the NASA Acquisition Internet Service at:

http://procure.msfc.nasa.gov.

-end-

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