A prototype winged spacecraft, intended to test new technologies for speeding up and simplifying launch services, blasted off from a nascent commercial spaceport in New Mexico last weekend, part of an ongoing secretive project by one of the country’s largest aerospace contractors.

“It’s right now a small, internal Lockheed Martin project on looking at various launch technologies,” said Slater Voorhees, project lead for the firm’s Advanced Programs.

Saturday’s launch from New Mexico’s budding Spaceport America was the third test flight of the vehicle. Voorhees declined to release the name of the project. UP Aerospace of Colorado, which operates a suborbital launch rail system at the spaceport, handled the flight under contract for Lockheed.

Test flights began in 2007 and the project is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.  Voorhees said it is not intended as a prototype for a crew-carrying vehicle. Rather, the project appears to be aimed at military and other space operators’ growing demand for quick and inexpensive launch services.

Flying from the still-under-development commercial spaceport provides a way for Lockheed to test non-traditional launch systems and support services, bypassing time-consuming and labor-intensive practices that may have become obsolete due to technological advances, yet remain requirements for launching on government ranges.

The Lockheed project reportedly involves a reusable, fly-back booster that takes off like a rocket and lands like an airplane.

“It’s just looking at new ways to do lean, responsive operations: How do we make a launch system more operational, leaner, less man-power? How do we provide more launch availability?” Voorhees said. “We’re looking at how to advance launch technologies.”

The prototypes are about 2.4 meters (8 feet) long, with a wingspan of about 1.8 meters -- about one-fifth the size the intended full-scale spacecraft. During a debut flight in December 2007, the spacecraft reached an altitude of about 3,000 feet. A second flight occurred in August 2008 though the craft lost control after reaching an altitude of about 1,500 feet and was damaged.

(Lockheed Martin's prototype winged spacecraft takes off on a second test flight in August 2008. Credit: Lockheed Martin.)