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Schedule including this lecture.
Goddard Space Flight Center Engineering Colloquium
Date: Monday, May 10, 1999
The X-34 program is a central element of NASA's Reusable Launch Vehicle program that also includes the DC-XA, X-33 and X-37 flight vehicles and a complementary set of laboratory and preflight technology development programs. The X-34 program has three key research objectives that once achieved will contribute to the goal of dramatically reducing the cost of space access. These three fundamental X-34 objectives are i) to develop and demonstrate new ways of operating and maintaining reusable launch vehicles at low cost, ii) to evaluate the life-cycle performance of key RLV technologies embedded in the vehicle design over realistic flight environments, and iii) to serve as a versatile research platform for hosted RLV technologies and other payloads.
Orbital has delivered the first airframe to Dryden Flight Research Center for ground and captive flight testing, and is building two flight vehicles each capable of flight to Mach 8 and 250,000ft altitude, average turnaround of two weeks, and launch cost of less than $1M per flight. This presentation will detail the technical objectives of the program, the status of vehicle development and testing, the plans for flight testing, and the potential of the X-34 to contribute more broadly to NASA's various enterprise objectives.
Dr. Lindberg is currently Vice President and Program Manager at Orbital, where he directs the development of NASAÂs X-34 rocketplane. He has been with Orbital for twelve years, and has previously held positions of Director of Advanced Projects, Program Manager, and Vice President for Program Development. During his tenure he conceived and led the development of APEX, OrbitalÂs first Pegasus-class satellite, and earlier contributed to the design of the Pegasus launch vehicle, for which he shared the 1991 National Medal of Technology, awarded by President George Bush.
Dr. Lindberg holds a B.S. in Physics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, an M.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of Virginia, and a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University. Prior to joining Orbital, he was a research scientist and branch head in the Navy Space Program at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC.
Dr. Lindberg is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), a Senior Member of the American Astronautical Society, and a Member of Sigma Xi and Sigma Pi Sigma. He has received numerous honors including the 1985 AIAA Young Engineer-Scientist Award. He has published over 25 refereed research papers in aerospace systems design, controls, and robotics, and has served as co-editor of two books. He has been an Associate Professorial Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the George Washington University. He serves on the Advisory Boards to the Department of Mechanical Engineering at WPI, and the Aerospace Engineering Department at Texas A&M University.
Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Lloyd Purves
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