Boeing X-40

The Boeing X-40 Space Maneuver Vehicle was an uncrewed test vehicle used to reduce the risk of the larger Boeing X-37 reusable spaceplane. The X-40A was an 80 to 90 percent scale model without propulsion or thermal protection, built by Boeing Phantom Works at Seal Beach, California, with the Air Force Research Laboratory for the Air Force Space Maneuver Vehicle program. Its first drop test was at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, on 11 August 1998, released from a helicopter, after which it was handed to NASA. In 2001 it made seven free flights at what is now NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, being lifted to altitude by a Chinook helicopter and then gliding autonomously to a landing, which tested the X-37 fat-bodied short-wing shape and its guidance software.