HOPE-X
Encyclopedia
HOPE was a Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese experimental spaceplane
Spaceplane
A spaceplane is a vehicle that operates as an aircraft in Earth's atmosphere, as well as a spacecraft when it is in space. It combines features of an aircraft and a spacecraft, which can be thought of as an aircraft that can endure and maneuver in the vacuum of space or likewise a spacecraft that...

 project designed by a partnership between NASDA
National Space Development Agency of Japan
of Japan, or NASDA, was a Japanese national space agency established on October 1, 1969 under the National Space Development Agency Law only for peaceful purposes...

 and NAL (both now part of JAXA
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
The , or JAXA, is Japan's national aerospace agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on October 1, 2003, as an Independent Administrative Institution administered by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the...

), started in the 1980s. It was positioned for most of its lifetime as one of the main Japanese contributions to the International Space Station
International Space Station
The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...

, the other being the Japanese Experiment Module
Japanese Experiment Module
The Japanese Experiment Module , also known with the nickname , is a Japanese science module for the International Space Station developed by JAXA. It is the largest single ISS module. The first two pieces of the module were launched on space shuttle missions STS-123 and STS-124...

. The project was eventually cancelled in 2003, by which point test flights of a sub-scale testbed had flown successfully.

The original HOPE project called for the building of a sub-scale orbital prototype known as HOPE-X, for H-2 Orbiting Plane, Experimental. This would be used for flight testing and systems validation, before moving onto the larger HOPE, which used many of the same parts and general design in a 4-man 22 metric tons (48,501.7 lb) design. As the name implies, both would be launched on Japan's new H-2
H-II
The H-II rocket was a Japanese satellite launch system, which flew seven times between 1994 and 1999, with five successes. It was developed by NASDA in order to give Japan a capability to launch larger satellites in the 1990s. It was the first two-stage liquid-fuelled rocket Japan made using only...

 launcher, the full-scale HOPE requiring substantial upgrades in performance. At the time, Japan was an up-and-coming industrial powerhouse, and their space program was moving from success to success. There was little doubt, and a little trepidation, that HOPE would be successful.

As part of the overall Japanese space program, testing for technologies that would be used on HOPE and other projects was well advanced. In February 1994 the first test flight of the new H-2 launcher was used to also launch the experimental OREX
OREX
OREX was a NASDA reentry demonstrator prototype which was launched in 1994 on the H-II launcher. It was a precursor for the Japanese space Shuttle Hope....

 ballistic re-entry vehicle, which tested various communications systems, heating profiles and heat shielding components. Another project, Hyflex
Hyflex
Hyflex was a NASDA reentry demonstrator prototype which was launched in 1996 on the only flight of the J-I launcher...

, followed in February 1996. Hyflex was intended to test the carbon-carbon
Reinforced carbon-carbon
Carbon fibre-reinforced carbon is a composite material consisting of carbon fibre reinforcement in a matrix of graphite. It was developed for the nose cones of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and is most widely known as the material for the nose cone and wing leading edges of the Space Shuttle...

 heat shielding tiles that were intended to be used on HOPE, as well as having the same body shaping in order to gather data on hypersonic lifting. Hyflex was successful, but sank in the Pacific after splashdown before it could be recovered.

In 1997, well into the study, it was decided that HOPE-X should be modified into an unmanned cargo vehicle with the addition of automated approach and docking systems, and a cargo bay with doors similar to the one on the U.S. Space Shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...

. It was believed this would result in a "quick and dirty" cargo supply system for ISS, which was suffering from continued delays due to problems with the Shuttle program. It was estimated that such a conversion could be completed for an additional US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

292 million, less expensive than designing a completely new ballistic cargo vehicle for the H-2 launcher, and much less expensive that the estimated US$2.9 billion needed to complete the full-sized HOPE. Even the small HOPE-X launched on unmodified H-2A rockets would deliver a useful 3 metric tons (6,613.9 lb) to ISS, about the same as the Progress spacecraft
Progress spacecraft
The Progress is a Russian expendable freighter spacecraft. The spacecraft is an unmanned resupply spacecraft during its flight but upon docking with a space station, it allows astronauts inside, hence it is classified manned by the manufacturer. It was derived from the Soyuz spacecraft, and is...

's approximate 2500 kilograms (5,511.6 lb). HOPE-X was about 12 metres (39.4 ft) long with a 9 metres (29.5 ft) wingspan, and looked quite a bit like the U.S. X-20 Dyna-Soar
X-20 Dyna-Soar
The X-20 Dyna-Soar was a United States Air Force program to develop a spaceplane that could be used for a variety of military missions, including reconnaissance, bombing, space rescue, satellite maintenance, and sabotage of enemy satellites...

.

In 1998, the H-2 suffered from a string of failures. A re-evaluation of the entire space program followed, and budget constraints later forced a reduction in overall funding by US$690 million to US$4.22 billion for the five-year spending period between 1998 and 2002. This would force a delay in the timeline for the HOPE-X, with its first flight in 2003. By this time NASDA had spent only US$305 million since the project was approved in 1988, reflecting the status as a research project. The next year the H-2 project was cancelled outright, proceeding with the simplified and lighter H-2A alone. Hughes
Hughes Aircraft
Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded in 1932 by Howard Hughes in Culver City, California as a division of Hughes Tool Company...

 pulled out of the H-2A project at about this time; they had initially purchased ten launches on the system and it was considered a major international success for NASDA.

HOPE continued to soldier on. In 2000, an agreement was signed to land the returning vehicle at Christmas Island
Kiritimati
Kiritimati or Christmas Island is a Pacific Ocean raised coral atoll in the northern Line Islands, and part of the Republic of Kiribati....

's Aeon Airstrip. As the 2003 deadline approached a number of debates broke out about the launcher profile, with many arguing that the H-2 should be replaced with a jet-powered cargo aircraft for an air-start. The first flight was pushed back further to 2004. Before this milestone was reached a major re-organization of NASDA took place in order to address its obvious overcommitment, especially now that there were demands for a crash program to develop spy satellite
Spy satellite
A spy satellite is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications....

s in order to track North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

n nuclear efforts. JAXA was formed, and HOPE was cancelled during this process.

Work continues on spaceplane development, however, under the High Speed Flight Demonstration (HSFD) project, although the HSFD design bears little resemblance to the Shuttle-like HOPE.

See also

  • Space Shuttle program
    Space Shuttle program
    NASA's Space Shuttle program, officially called Space Transportation System , was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011...

  • EADS Phoenix - successor to the cancelled Hermes
    Hermes (shuttle)
    Hermes was a proposed spaceplane designed by the French Centre National d'Études Spatiales in 1975, and later by the European Space Agency. It was superficially similar to the US X-20. France proposed in January 1985 to go through with Hermes development under the auspices of the ESA. Hermes was...

     program that was a contemporary of HOPE.
  • Buran (spacecraft)
  • X-37
  • H-II Transfer Vehicle
    H-II Transfer Vehicle
    The H-II Transfer Vehicle , called , is an unmanned resupply spacecraft used to resupply the Kibō Japanese Experiment Module and the International Space Station . The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has been working on the design since the early 1990s. The first mission, HTV-1, was originally...


External links

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