The Space Launch Initiative (SLI) was a NASA and U.S. Department of Defense joint research and technology project to determine the requirements to meet all the nation’s hypersonics, space launch and space technology needs. The program began with the award of reusable launch vehicle study contracts in 2000.
The primary goal of this research was to increase safety and reliability and to reduce overall costs associated with building, flying and maintaining the nation’s next generation of space launch vehicles. NASA anticipated that these advances would revitalize the nation’s space transportation capabilities, and dramatically improve NASA’s ability to conduct science and exploration missions in space.|This program was ended with the cancellation of the X-33 and X-34 and the conclusion of the X-43 programs. NASA changed its focus to Constellation Program.
The Space Launch Initiative Propulsion Office -- managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., -- sought to advance technologies and explore new avenues of space propulsion to develop safer, more reliable and affordable propulsion solutions. Four main engine candidates for a second generation reusable launch vehicle emerged, including two hydrogen-fueled (COBRA, RS-83, TR-106) and two kerosene-fueled (RS-84, TR-107) staged combustion engines.
California Poly Pomona's Professor Steven Dobbs was the Lead Systems Engineer on the project, making significant use of the program as an example for failed systems engineering.
Read more about Space Launch Initiative: COBRA Rocket Engine, RS-83 Rocket Engine, RS-84 Rocket Engine, TR-106 / TR-107 Rocket Engines, Air Force Reusable Booster Program, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words space, launch and/or initiative:
“... the movie woman’s world is designed to remind us that a woman may live in a mansion, an apartment, or a yurt, but it’s all the same thing because what she really lives in is the body of a woman, and that body is allowed to occupy space only according to the dictates of polite society.”
—Jeanine Basinger (b. 1936)
“I had often stood on the banks of the Concord, watching the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress, following the same law with the system, with time, and all that is made ... and at last I resolved to launch myself on its bosom and float whither it would bear me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–120)