Blackstar (spacecraft)

The possible existence of the Blackstar program was reported in March 2006 by Aviation Week & Space Technology (Aviation Week, AWST) magazine; the magazine reported that the program had been underway since at least the early 1990s, and that the impetus for Blackstar was to allow the United States government to retain orbital reconnaissance capabilities jeopardized following the 1986 Challenger disaster.

The article also said that the United States Air Force's Space Command was unaware of Blackstar, suggesting it was operated by an intelligence agency such as the National Reconnaissance Office.

The Aviation Week report was dismissed a few days later as "almost certainly bogus" and the project termed a "technical absurdity" by Jeffrey F. Bell in an article in Space Daily.

The primary use of a military spaceplane such as Blackstar would be to conduct high-altitude or orbital reconnaissance, allowing surprise overflights of foreign locations with very low risk of the spyplane being successfully engaged by existing air-defense systems.

Aviation Week's article speculated that the success of Blackstar explains the Government's willingness to cancel the SR-71 Blackbird and Air Force satellite-launch programs.

The second stage of Brilliant Buzzard was considered a hypersonic aircraft, and the lengthening of runways at facilities such as Area 51 (taken by some as evidence of Aurora) could instead be necessary either to support SR-3's takeoff or XOV's landing.

[citation needed] What is known, and a matter of public record, is that, through the 1980s and 1990s, the USAF did undertake a series of projects to study, research, develop and test demonstrator vehicles capable of SSTO (single-stage-to-orbit) and TSTO (two-stage-to-orbit) missions.