The US military had selected Boeing to enter into a collaborative venture to construct an Experimental Spaceplane called Phantom Express. The project, however, began to wane before being cancelled altogether.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has scrapped its proposed military spaceplane on Thursday after Boeing withdrew from the Experimental Spaceplane (XSP) program, which intended to expand the nation's capabilities in space, Space.com reports.
The vehicle was originally named Phantom Express, an eerily appropriate name given that the the project will now never exist in material form.
“Following a detailed review, Boeing is ending our role in the Experimental Spaceplane (XSP) program immediately”, a Boeing representative said in an email on Thursday.
“We will now redirect our investment from XSP to other Boeing programs that span the sea, air and space domains”, they added.
“We're proud to have been part of a DARPA-led industry team that collaborated to advance launch-on-demand technology. We will make it a priority to harvest the significant learnings from this effort and apply them as Boeing continues to seek ways to provide future responsive, reusable access to space.”
While Boeing has moved on from the project, DARPA remain optimistic about the developments gained from pursuing it.
“This effectively ends the XSP program; however, the objectives of the program remain of interest, and may be explored in separate, competitively…
