Northrop HL-10

The Northrop HL-10 is an experimental lifting body aircraft built for NASA, first flown in 1966 as part of a research program investigating whether a wingless or nearly wingless vehicle, generating lift primarily from the shape of its fuselage rather than from conventional wings, could be flown and landed safely, research relevant to the design of a spacecraft returning through the atmosphere. Launched from a carrier aircraft and later flown under its own rocket power, it went on to achieve some of the best speed and altitude results of NASA's lifting body research program, and the data it and its sister vehicles produced fed into the aerodynamic thinking later applied to the Space Shuttle's own atmospheric reentry and unpowered landing approach.