Research Institute (HSRI) ( pr: "NIPGS") in Saint Petersburg. In early 1993, as an answer to the American announcement of the X-30 NASP demonstrator, the Ayaks project integrates into the wider national ORYOL ( pr: "Or'yol", Eagle) program, federating all Russian hypersonic works to design a competing spaceplane as a reusable launch system. In September 1993 the program was unveiled and a first small-scale model of Ayaks was publicly shown for the first time on the Leninetz booth at the 2nd MAKS Air Show in Moscow. In 1994 Novichkov revealed that the Russian Federation was ready to fund the Ayaks program for eight years and that a reusable small-scale flight test module had been built by the Arsenal Design Bureau. He also stated that Ayaks' working principles had been validated with an engine test stand in a wind tunnel. The same year, the American NASP project was cancelled and replaced by the Hypersonic Systems Technology Program (HySTP), cancelled as well after three months. In 1995 NASA launched the Advanced Reusable Transportation Technologies (ARTT) program, part of the Highly Reusable Space Transportation (HRST) initiative, but experts from consulting firm ANSER evaluating Ayaks technologies did not believe at first in the performances announced by the Russians and did not recommend development along the same path. However, between October 1995 and April 1997, a series of Russian patents covering Ayaks technologies were granted to Leninetz HLDG Co. and consequently available publicly, the oldest having been filed 14 years before. As the information available out of Russia started to grow, three western academic researchers started to collect the sparse data about Ayaks: Claudio Bruno, professor at the Sapienza University of Rome; Paul A. Czysz, professor at the Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology at Saint Louis University; and S. N. B. Murthy, professor at Purdue University. In September 1996, as part of the Capstone Design Course and the Hypersonic Aero-Propulsion Integration Course at Parks College, Czysz assigned his students to analyze the information gathered, as the ODYSSEUS project. Thereafter the three researchers copublished a conference paper summarizing the Western analysis of Ayaks principles. With such information, long-time ANSER main expert Ramon L. Chase reviewed his former position and assembled a team to evaluate and develop American versions of Ayaks technologies within the HRST program. He recruited H. David Froning Jr., CEO of Flight Unlimited; Leon E. McKinney, world expert in fluid dynamics; Paul