McDonnell Douglas X-33 SSTO Reusable Launch Vehicle

Single-Stage-To-Orbit (SSTO) Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). McDonnell Douglas submitted a vertical landing configuration design which used liquid oxygen/hydrogen engines. NASA considered design submissions from Rockwell, Lockheed Martin, and McDonnell Douglas. NASA selected Lockheed Martin’s X-33 design on 2 July 1996. The RLV technology program was a cooperative agreement between NASA and industry. The goal of the RLV technology program was to produce significant reductions in the cost of access to space, and to promote the creation and delivery of new space services and other activities that would have improve U.S. economic competitiveness.
#ssto #nasa #spacex

[@jmsnead]

Having worked on the DC-X project from the DOD side of the project, it is nice to see this very good visualization. However, as I recall the design, there are several elements presented incorrectly. During the reentry, the vehicle was primarily in a nose-down position to minimize aft body heating and maximize cross-range maneuverability to bleed off energy and reach the landing site from a range of orbital positions. As the vehicle approached the ground unpowered over the landing site, it would rotate into a nose-high attitude even as it continued to lose altitude. Very close to the ground, the landing engines would start and run just for a minimum number of seconds to touch down. The video shows the vehicle falling like a "leaf" and starting the engines quite early. The propellant mass for this to happen would be prohibitive and likely make SSTO not possible to achieve. A general operational safety issue with this approach is how to assure that the landing engines will, with very high confidence, start in those last few seconds. Any failure, even for a couple of seconds, to start will result in a crash. This is a key operational safety issue that any such vehicle needs to resolve to become "truly" operational.

[@concreteproof]

Those margins must have been super tight with an SSTO design!

[@jmsnead]

@@concreteproof SSTO designs-remembering that none have yet been built-typically had payload fractions of 1-2 percent of the TOGW. "Design closure"-referring to when the detailed design ready for fabrication is, with reasonable weight and propellant margins, able complete the design missions-has been very difficult to achieve in actual practice. None have done this as of yet, to my knowledge. This is why a two-stage, fully-reusable system, developed in accordance with standard airworthiness-like safety requirements, will likely be the first true commercial passenger spaceflight system built.

[@adinb6876]

Thank you for your insight & first hand experience!

[@niraj_dave]

would you say that starship comes very close to what you mention the process is here. believe starship bit more leverage comparatively since it's a TSTO instead of SSTO.

[@Chris.Davies]

Hover-slam only for SSTOs. And hence, impossible to man-rate.

[@gregoryfaith4303]

I worked on the telemetry/radar tracking portion of the project at NASA Dryden from the beginning to the end of the project. X-33 was never flown. It was fun.

[@clevergirl4457]

That flip and landing animation was 👌

[@pricelessppp]

Like starship!

[@eddjordan2399]

@@pricelessppp indeed.

[@ecuatorianogenerico]

The peak

[@user-bs9zz3rw4g]

Точно, это мультик.

[@randycampbell6307]

Great visuals as usual. It's kind of a misnomer though as the "X-33" was to be a test article only capable of suborbital flight, the 'actual' SSTO was to be the DC-Y. Oddly after the full "X-33" program was canceled Northrup-Grumman who was to partner with McDonnel Douglas on their version of the X-33 and responsible for the cryogenic composite propellant tanks delivered a "full size" (aka X-33) set of tanks to NASA for destructive testing. Not only were the tanks easier to make due to not having the complicated geometry of the actual X-33 tanks but they were much more robust than the actual tanks. The NASA testing program went fine as far as I ever heard. As jmsnead pointed out the reentry would have been in a nose-down-and-forward position to retain enough hypersonic lift (the reason the "windward" side is flat like the Shuttle) to meet DoD/DARPA requirements. (The nose would have been of refractory materials backed up by an active "transpiration" cooling system IIRC) Landing would have been more like the "hover-slam" of the Falcon 9 due to the limited amount of propellant left in the tanks at that point. (Sharp eyed viewers will note the windward side "flares' out from the cylinder section to keep the majority of heating off the leeward side of the vehicle. It also has a "body flap" like the Shuttle for better maneuverability and to protect the engines from heating. Because an "engine bay" ala-Starship is a very, very bad idea for a cryogenic rocket) People should also note the two (2) sets of engines with the outer 4 being high thrust engines with limited throttability and the inner ones being deep throttling for landing.(IIRC for the DC-Y the outer engines were to be variants of the SSME's and the inner ones some type of RL10)

[@LDTV22OfficialChannel]

Thank you for the facts.

[@mattybirchall]

As opposed to the Lockheed Martin skunkworks X33 which was a lifting body? Wow this rocket concept had a lot of Starship in it (more like the original Interplanetary Transport Ship though), must be where SpaceX got the idea from! Great stuff, keep them coming!

[@bryanillenberg]

While there are similarities to Starship, that's mostly because it's the ideal design for a reusable upper stage.

[@therathalosabusnardo923]

It’s also quite different from starship, beside the different propellant and materials, that X-33 would have been much more of a hypersonic lifting body than starship, which has a very ballistic reentry and is optimised for it. Honestly plug nozzle, active cooled, capsule like reusable upper stages like what stokes is building or the historical ROMBUS are quite likely to be competitive with more starship-like reusable S2 design. I also wouldn’t dismiss the use of inflatable hypersonic decelerators for upper stage recovery.

[@bryanillenberg]

@@therathalosabusnardo923 "Honestly plug nozzle, active cooled, capsule like reusable upper stages like what stokes is building or the historical ROMBUS are quite likely to be competitive with more starship-like reusable S2 design." Active cooling is heavy. More mass means less payload. Less payload means more $/kg. Starship is (close to) the ideal design for a reusable upper stage.

[@VectorCrafty]

“It has Starship in it”. So cute and innocent.

[@therathalosabusnardo923]

Mass that is compensated by the lack of tiles and aerodynamic control surfaces Matter of fact, as long as starship has flaps and tiles, it’ll never be ideal

[@billwatkins276]

The MDC DC-X was originally proposed in response to a DoD Strategic Defense Initiative Office RFP (circa 1990). MDC and Scaled Composites built a 1/3 scale 40 foot high concept demonstrator (in 21 months for only $60 million) and had started incremental test flights when SDI was cancelled. The prototype flight test program was then shifted to NASA and DARPA to continue testing, but the upgraded prototype was seriously damaged in a landing accident caused by a pre-flight maintenance error and NASA declined to continue the program. Refer to Wikipedia article "McDonnell Douglas DC-X" for the history of the program. (Former astronaut Pete Conrad was working for McDonnell Douglas at the time and provided ground-based remote control for some of the flights.)

[@LDTV22OfficialChannel]

It's a shame of how Hazegrey got them confused

[@dkadayinthailand3082]

The animation, especially where it's flying off with the camera movement looks very realistic.

[@piplupsingularity]

If they made this a two-stage design, we could've had Starship a few decades early

[@thadollagenerale]

These animations are the absolute best. Thanks dude.

[@patpat9803]

Damn, I leave this channel a little while ago, incredible animations, I come back now, it somehow got even better ! Incredible work man !

[@vaughnpatania506]

my heart aches at the unrealized futures we might have had...

[@charlesblithfield6182]

Focus adjustments, lens flares and more show the attention to detail in these fantastic creations.

[@jameswilson5165]

These just keep getting better and better.

[@turbodunce2938]

Are you going to do Rockwell's proposal next? Please do!

[@Nalrats]

your ability to integrate these vehicles into real footage is very impressive.

[@shilparadhakrishna7475]

This whole video was... chef's kiss...

[@Keavon]

This is by far your highest-quality animation and editing. Keep making the quality at this video's standards!

[@JAD-rb1fr]

Nice. This and the Superheavy booster to send it off through the solar system. Looks better than Starship.

[@lautaromontenegro7362]

these animations keep getting better and better

[@octopusmagnificens]

The graphics keep improving.

[@Brouk331]

Thank you for sharing this amazing and very informative video about the McDonnell Douglas X-33 SSTO Reusable Vehicle. I liked it a lot. PEACE. --- Merci d'avoir partagé cette vidéo étonnante et très informative sur le véhicule réutilisable McDonnell Douglas X-33 SSTO. Je l'ai beaucoup aimé. PAIX.

[@elmobrandao9849]

I can barely wait for Rockwell's X-33 video (the last remaining)

[@AndrewDasilvaPLT]

Thank you for your work.

[@commonsenseskeptic]

Nicely done.

[@robmelis7537]

Very nicely done. More please!

[@joansparky4439]

slick. thx for animating it so nicely

[@h.plovecraftn-4307]

Just like a starship on the SpaceX

[@robertfousch2703]

would love to see you do a launch of Skylab where it shows the micrometeor shield being torn off at about 1 min in, the failure of the aft skirt being jettisoned after S-II ignition, and the ripping of the solar panel after S-II and the lab separation, followed by the launch of Skylab II and its fly around to survey the damage. So many things went wrong and yet we still fixed the lab and has 3 successful missions.

[@trstquint7114]

nice animation...

[@Gerhard_Schroeder]

Again - Great video!

[@valmine7507]

nice

[@davidroberts5602]

Hi that was awesome David I’d like 👍 to see those little bots in the next one David 🚀❤️🇬🇧👌👍

[@ajds]

This was real. You can't tell me it wasn't. Bravo!

[@PiDsPagePrototypes]

Have you thought about doing a Rylothian GunStar ?

[@jul__p6393]

The sound 🤩

[@longtsun8286]

Impressive work.

[@timwilliams9100]

Would love to see something like this incorporating the Regenerative cooled heat shield of STOKE. Would be cool if you could have the central engine be a jet engine using Liquid air simply by scooping up air for first two minutes of Flight and last minute of landing by integrating it with the Cooling heat shield

[@pontuswendt2486]

AMAZINGNES!!! This is always so coool!!!

[@janosnemate5795]

/néri/köszönöm űrutazás magyarulnak, sajnálom fűnyírás &egyéb kerti munkák,puszi házi munka ezerrel puszi!!!❤❤❤❤🌹💋🌹🌹🌺🌺🌷🌷🌷🌺💝💝🌾😘

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Great video...👍

[@terencewong-lane4309]

*Spectacular*

[@-K-Depbluhole]

Nice

[@atptourfan]

So awesome!

[@badrinair]

Awesome 👍🏾

[@martinmaxian8880]

Zaujímavé.

[@IanValentine147]

Amazing

[@WolfeSaber9933]

Next generation of SpaceX rockets

[@freedom4651]

Do you think Haz needs to recreate their old videos with this quality?

[@alexaxel2953]

Wow, few years ago this chanal got maximum 77 000 subscriber and now 700K +

[@centaur1a]

You should try those “What if” type animation. I was thinking of if “ space shuttle (or something similar) was ready to release a rocket pack to push Skylab into a higher orbit. Plus what would the extended parts look like had NASA had the budget to do so.

[@bohicajohnson7203]

That is amazing, the dreams of a possible future.

[@Ithirahad]

A possible past. This X-33 design was rejected in favor of a different bidder, and then the whole program, like pretty much every innovative launch vehicle program in NASA, was cancelled by Congress refusing to pay for its continuation decades ago. Now the only NASA-led launch vehicle program is... well... the Artemis SLS, and we all know how that one goes.

[@afroztayyab7222]

🎉❤😊MASHALLAH I ♥ like ♥

[@stanleydomalewski8497]

Interesting

[@rogercooley6]

I worked on the DCX prototype. 1/3 scale. It flew and landed vertically long before SpaceX. Until it was destroyed when one of the 4 landing gear failed to deploy. Bummer.

[@LordDustinDeWynd]

Bummer it hasn't flown yet!

[@sfsastro8697]

It was cancelled in the 90s

[@_space_and_air_construction_]

Ето бомба просто круто

[@simongeard4824]

At about half the vehicle's total volume, the tanks seem very small for an SSTO - especially a hydrolox one, and even more so for one that also has to reserve enough fuel for a very slow hovering landing (not a suicide burn like Falcon).

[@christiantroy3034]

When I was younger I read a book called Cloud Dog, can you make a cloud look like a dog and have the craft fly by it?

[@garylester3976]

Very nice video, but a crude ship design, but does use Beck's traffic cone statement to at least be self sufficient and not need silly gigantic towers like Starship. I could suggest a design that instead of the flat bottom heat shield, had shallow V hull bottom chines for passive stability. Also would be better to have wider hulls, and inline the engines. more of a Manta effect for longer glide ratio re entry. front end could be surf board like, and give a Frisbee like glide ratio. With a rounded top and flatter bottom lifting shape. Also wing effect needs to be high shouldered, and wing shape creating a air glide box, using about 30° angles at the shoulders, and then wings 15° or less rise from center, and then again 30° down at the tip. We need to get away from pointy capsule shapes and into more mature and elegant designs. I guess to defense contractors, everything is an artillery round?

[@smde1]

Oh what are the possible military applications?

[@Delta-V-Heavy]

Ooh, that’s SLC-6, right?

[@Arcadelt12]

this is awesome, but I think the engine plume is underexpanded too far into the launch flight regime. You probably should not be seeing shock diamonds at a minute into the launch

[@michaelhband]

👍👍👍❤❤❤🚀🚀🚀

[@irinabrezeanu343]

Waw😮❤🎉

[@Eshanas]

If only….

[@silverfox8615]

Wasn't it supposed to splash down on pools at the Cape?

[@strufian]

Красивая компьютерная графика. X -33 компании Макдональд-Дуглас никогда не был создан (обошлось красивой картинкой). А их предыдущий проект - Дельта Клипер был крайне неудачным. 1997 году компания Макдональд-Дуглас была поглащена Боингом и перестала существовать. Увы.

[@avinashkamble318]

👍👍👍

[@michaelshortland8863]

There is a good novel about this vehicle called "Lash-Up" by Larry Bond, if anybody is interested.

[@hallahgray3190]

If only they had built it we could have been further, along the line as a spacefaring nation.

[@Organic_Corn_Farmer]

Does anyone think the Lockheed Martin X33 version went black after the program was cancelled? The fuel tanks were a lame excuse to cancel.

[@DJ-bh1ju]

Carrying enough fuel to get itself all the way to orbit from a standing start.... That's the biggest problem right now.... Hope I live long enough to see that solved.

[@hwytravler1962]

The warp drive is still in the works

[@bryanillenberg]

@@hwytravler1962 That won't help for reaching orbit.

[@cockpeatdarkhole6909]

See the chinese Rocket (for Building the Space Station tiangong) - from Earth to Space with a big fat Booster, then uncontrolled fly in the Orbit... 😆

[@DJ-bh1ju]

@@hwytravler1962 Indeed. The theories are being actively worked on in small labs around the world... Someone, not likely named Zephram Cochrane, will make a breakthrough some year.

[@ArjunaKunti]

Why didn't they planned foldable wings which can expand during reentry so they could land with a much smaller g-force glider?

[@HALLish-jl5mo]

Folding wings are an engineering and maintenance nightmare on a vehicle that does mach 2.5 and you want them on a vehicle that does mach 25?

[@dr4d1s]

While the idea is good, the hardware needed to do that would be prohibitively heavy and would have had to hold up to extreme pressures and velocities - thus making them even heavier for safety margins and reducing your mass fraction even more; the bane of the SSTO. As a side note, you can see this happen in aircraft design in the mid 70s to early 80s. There is a reason why new variable swept wings weren't really made after that time period. There was a video released a week or so ago about the topic. Unfortunately I can't remember the channel off the top of my head. You should be able to find it pretty easily if you are interested.

[@absalomdraconis]

​@@dr4d1s: I don't remember the channel either, but I do remember the thumbnail: an F-14, mid-flight, seen from above, with one wing retracted and the other extended. An unfortunately common occurrence while landing F-14s.

[@Ithirahad]

Mass and complexity. Mostly mass.

[@dr4d1s]

@@absalomdraconis yep that is the one. It was a really interesting and informative video as I had always wondered why they never did more designs like the F-14. 10-12 year old me didn't know crap about engineering but they looked awesome and kicked butt in Top Gun! Lol

[@mediagroup7497]

Топливо не хватает для выхода на орбиту. Нужен дополнительный бак как на шатле а так графика реалистичная

[@strufian]

Это всё проекты 30-ти летней давности. О них забыть пора...

[@allanchurm]

at least it lands on legs ..that catch arm idea from spacex hopes that all the engines fire ok..( no landing legs on the booster or starship.) .micky mouse outfit.

[@CromemcoZ2]

How does a chemical-fueled rocket get to orbit with such small fuel tanks? From the position of the docking port, it looks like no more than 50% fuel.

[@MCMXLVI]

What I find weird is that Douglas Aircraft is owned by Boeing?

[@DanielGomez-gw4kt]

Hazegrayart when you post in the next video, can you do the Rockwell design of the X-33 as well ? Make sure that you have the Rockwell X-33 to blast off like a rocket from a LaunchPad first, make sure that it's launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base like from this video. I would also like to see it make a space dock to the International Space Station, and at the end of the video make sure it lands at the Kennedy Space center. And actually I kind of change the idea for the beginning of the next video, have the Rockwell X-33 to blast off from Edwards Air Force. The reason why for that, it's because that I've been thinking and dreaming that someday if space vehicles can be launched from Edwards Air Force Base someday. So I would like to see a CGI animated video of the Rockwell X-33 to be launched from Edwards Air Force, so it could kind of demonstrate and simulate that hopefully NASA, SpaceX, blue origin and maybe Sierra space can launch space vehicles someday at Edwards Air Force base. So make sure that you have the next CGI animated video to demonstrate, simulate and test the idea. With the Rockwell X-33👍😉

[@marshallrauch817]

Nowhere near the fuel capacity required. Always the problem with SSTO, and even starship has it!

[@codeforce5556]

Detonation engine, would work

[@emmanuelgarcia2870]

😲

[@ClausB252]

Great CGI! Shame to see it diminished by mimicking the reality of focus failures, poor tracking, shaking, lens flare, etc.

[@rjung_ch]

Well, I hope this vehicles is not as badly built as the previous ones from Boeing, else they won't even get to fly. Your animations are so real, thanks! 👍💪✌

[@menguardingtheirownwallets6791]

Sorry, but it does not have enough fuel to make it to orbit, not in that configuration. The vehicle would need to be a lot larger and use a much more efficient aerospike engine it if were to get into orbit using just a single stage.

[@RXTRUX1]

Boeing killed it.

[@voraz.]

-everyone: talking about how good and realistic this animation is -the smoke at the start of the video: 💀

[@quantumac]

As impressive as this design and animation are, I keep wondering if there is a better way. *IF* there is any truth at all to the idea that _some_ UAP might be visiting NHI, their understanding of physics and modes of transportation appear to be far more scalable than ours, from the very small to the very large. It's an unknown, but perhaps it's something worth investigating outside of deep black projects.

[@trs4u]

Without a suicide burn, it looks fake - like a New Shepard landing.

[@2150dalek]

Bizarre design, half rocket, half lifting body. The Fins and wings are cool near the engines. But I suppose the space shuttle also had a fin under it's engine. I would like to see an animation of the once NASA proposed helicopter blade landing of capsules instead of parachutes.

[@vicabramov8983]

i guess it never was really built

[@eiskaffe4018]

Looks like a Kindergartener's drawing of a rocket💀

[@abelincoln.2064]

C'mon man. The SSTO was never possible due to the propellant requirements. MD should figured out it needed an reusable Booster .. with a vertial take off & land ... to X-33 to an altitude with negligible air resistance and a velocity where the it can comfortably get to orbital velocity with its tanks, with enough fuel to get to the ISS ... and ... land on Earth. But MD with guidance from NASA ... stupidly focused on SSTO .... instead of Two Stages to orbit .. reusable Launch system.

[@illuminatedtiger]

Radial landing legs - what a concept! Someone should go back to 2017 and tell Elon.

[@davidbowerman6433]

Everyone seems confused by the fact this is NOT the X-33.... This is the Delta X. Made by Lockhead. The X-33 was a SSTO Space PLANE. And landed as such. Still, great graphics. And as noted by @jmsnead not quite how it operated. It makes Falcon slam-burn look tame in comparison! Literally SECONDS before impact

[@ryanmilton2643]

As cool as the video is, it’s really misrepresenting things because people believe that it’s real and that it’s happening. It’s not.

[@fredcomstock1100]

SSTO has been proven that it will not work. You cannot change the laws of physics. Too much propellant is needed therefore too much weight and therefore more propellant. The only way to get SSTO is an engine that exceeds the laws of physics. Getting to 100Km is not enough to achieve orbit, you must also achieve 27,000 Km/hr velocity to stay up (orbit). I will stay tuned for the attempts, but I highly doubt SSTO will ever be achieved.

[@cockpeatdarkhole6909]

Nope. Not, when you have Nuklear- thermic Engines or Fusion- drive (Not today, but in 20....50 Years?) 😉

[@Chris.Davies]

We have spent many decades and many billion of dollars studying SSTO concepts, so we know a lot about them. And what we know is that they are no damned good.

[@johngennari2899]

Too bad there would never be enough fuel to do what is shown. It would need a space shuttle external tank size.

[@gopichalapathi1223]

Which movie is this footage from ?