It Has No Wings, But Escape Ship Makes First Flight -- Nasa's X-38 Is First Manned Spacecraft To Be Tested Since Shuttle Two Decades Ago

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - The prototype of a new emergency escape craft for crews of the International Space Station made its debut flight yesterday.

The X-38 - a whale-shaped, wingless vehicle with fins that look like they came from a 1956 Cadillac - is the first new manned spacecraft to reach flight-testing stage since the space shuttle was developed more than two decades ago.

The craft is meant to bring the space station's crew safely back to Earth in any emergency in which there was not enough time to launch a shuttle to collect them.

The windowless, pilotless craft is designed to be fully automated, so that even badly injured crew members could climb in and separate from the station. The vehicle would then serve as an ambulance, using satellite-based navigation aids to carry crew members back to one of several designated landing fields on Earth.

In yesterday's X-38 mission, a fiberglass prototype of the spacecraft was dropped from under the wing of a B-52 bomber 23,000 feet above Edwards Air Force Base. It flew free for only about four seconds before parachutes were deployed. Then a 5,500-square-foot parafoil billowed out, and the X-38 floated to the ground. The descent lasted nine minutes.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials said the mission was aimed at testing the parachute system, steering mechanisms and landing skids.

Although the flight was not free of glitches - a twist in the main parachute's lines caused several anxious seconds before the chute fully unfurled - the X-38 landed relatively softly in the desert northeast of Los Angeles, less than 1,000 feet off target.

"This is a 10," exulted mission director John Muratore.

Muratore, who works at Johnson Space Center in Houston, is credited with the idea of combining two aviation technologies - lifting bodies and advanced parachute design - to come up with an emergency vehicle that can be built at a cost far below original $2 billion estimates.

NASA has spent about $10 million on the X-38. The budget for completion of the project, including building four fully outfitted spacecraft, is about $500 million, although overruns are projected.

In an emergency, the craft would detach from the space station. As it re-enters the upper atmosphere, the flat undersurface of the X-38 will serve as a heat shield and then generate lift for an unpowered glide through the upper atmosphere - much as the bottom of the space shuttle does. At 50,000 feet, the chutes are deployed.

Approximately 20 more tests of X-38 prototypes will be conducted at Edwards over several years. If all goes according to plan, an X-38 capable of carrying the entire seven-person crew of the space station will be fully operational in 2003.

Muratore said data from the flight would be analyzed before the next test in about two months.