The Martin Marietta X-24 is an American experimental aircraft developed from a joint United States Air Force - NASA program named PILOT (1963–1975). It was designed and built to test lifting body concepts, experimenting with the concept of unpowered reentry and landing, later used by the Space Shuttle. [1]

The U.S. Air Force, NASA and Martin Aircraft (now Lockheed Martin) heavily modified the X-24A to make a higher-performing vehicle, the X-24B. The X-24B’s flat bottom and long nose added surface area to improve gliding qualities, increasing range and maneuverability.

Gentry’s landing of Martin Marietta’s extraordinary X-24A “lift body” plane had proven what many scientists had thought impossible: that a wingless aircraft could descend from the upper atmosphere and glide safely back to Earth.

Feb 7, 2016 · The X-24B was a joint program between NASA, the U. S. Air Force and Martin Aircraft Company. The aircraft flew 36 times between 1973 and 1975. The X-24B was the last of the lifting body aircraft to fly and demonstrated that accurate unpowered reentry vehicle landings were operationally feasible.

Feb 11, 2014 · The X-24B's design evolved from a family of potential re-entry shapes proposed by the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory, each with higher lift-to-drag ratios.

Aug 15, 2019 · The Martin Marietta X-24B was part of a focused NASA project intended to collect data on "lifting body" aircraft. A lifting body utilized characteristics (mainly a balanced lift-versus-drag quality) of a "flying wing" in which no true tail unit was featured and the body and wing elements were blended elegantly together to form a single shape.

Aug 4, 2020 · On August 5, 1975, in the skies over Southern California, NASA’s modified B-52B “Mothership” was cruising at 45,000 feet. Secured beneath its right wing was the X-24B—a thick, angled aircraft with small fins instead of wings. The shape earned the …

The Martin Marietta X-24B was an experimental US aircraft developed from a joint USAF-NASA program named PILOT (1963–1975). It was designed and built to test lifting body concepts, experimenting with the concept of unpowered reentry and landing, later used by …

American manned spaceplane. 36 launches, 1973.08.01 to 1975.11.26 . Status: Operational 1973. Thrust: 43.58 kN (9,797 lbf). Gross mass: 6,258 kg (13,796 lb). Unfuelled mass: 3,778 kg (8,329 lb). Specific impulse: 225 s. Height: 11.43 m (37.49 ft). Span: 5.84 m (19.16 ft).

Dec 31, 2014 · The X-24B was the last aircraft to fly in Dryden's Lifting Body program. Lifting bodies were wingless vehicles designed to fly back to Earth from space and be landed like an aircraft at a pre-determined site. First to fly the X-24B was John Manke, conducting a glide flight on August 1, 1973.