Environmental Assessment for the Orbital Reentry Corridor for Generic Unmanned Lifting Entry Vehicle Landing at Edwards Air Force Base

Abstract : The U.S. Air Force proposes to establish an orbital reentry corridor into Edwards AFB, California, for generic, medium size, unmanned lifting entry vehicles (LEV s ). The Proposed Action is being developed as a cooperative effort among the Department of Defense Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to support the development and test of future unmanned entry vehicles for both NASA and the Air Force. The overall purpose of the Proposed Action is to designate a generic orbital reentry corridor for the recovery of flights of unmanned LEV s from low earth orbit to final approach and landing at Edwards AFB in support of future Air Force and NASA research and development programs. The unmanned LEV reentry corridor is defined by the trajectory (ground track and altitude) of the vehicle as it reenters the earth's atmosphere from space.