Martin X-24

The Martin X-24 was an American experimental lifting-body aircraft built by the Martin Marietta Corporation for NASA and the United States Air Force, flown in two principal configurations, the rounded X-24A and the later, more slender X-24B, during the late 1960s and 1970s. Lacking conventional wings, the lifting body generated aerodynamic lift primarily from the shape of its own fuselage, testing a concept for a reusable spacecraft that could re-enter the atmosphere and then glide to a conventional runway landing rather than descending under a parachute. The aircraft was typically carried aloft and air-launched from a modified B-52 bomber, and the research it produced fed directly into the aerodynamic design of the later Space Shuttle orbiter.