X-30 NASP

National Aero-Space Plane, Orient Express

Mission Profile

X-30 NASP (National Aero-Space Plane, Orient Express) was an ambitious US government program to develop a single-stage-to-orbit aerospace plane powered by scramjet engines that could transition from air-breathing to rocket propulsion. Studied from 1986 with a concept date standing 46 meters long, it aimed to take off from a runway, accelerate to orbital velocity on atmospheric oxygen, and land like a conventional aircraft. The NASP program was cancelled in 1994 as the technological challenges of sustained hypersonic combustion proved far more difficult than anticipated.