Free Republic

The results are in from last summer’s attempt to test new technology that would provide the Pentagon with a lightning-fast vehicle, capable of delivering a military strike anywhere in the world in less than an hour. In August the Pentagon's research arm, known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, carried out a test flight of an experimental aircraft capable of traveling at 20 times the speed of sound. The arrowhead-shaped unmanned aircraft, dubbed Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara, into the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere...

HONOLULU (AP) — The Army on Thursday conducted its first flight test of a new weapon capable of traveling five times the speed of sound. The Army launched the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon from the military's Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai at about 1:30 a.m. The weapon's "glide vehicle" reached Kwajalein Atoll — some 2,300 miles away — in less than half an hour, said Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan, a Pentagon spokeswoman. Earlier this year, the Congressional Research Service said in a report the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon is part of the military's program to develop "prompt global strike" weapons that...

Six months after the first test flight of the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle’s (HTV-2) which failed to meet its objective, an independent Engineering Review Board (ERB) identified the anomaly that caused the vehicle to exceeding the design flight control envelope. “No major changes to the vehicle or software are required to mitigate the first flight anomaly” said David Neyland, DARPA Tactical Technology Office director, “Engineers will adjust the vehicle’s center of gravity, decrease the angle of attack flown and use the onboard reaction control system to augment the vehicle flaps when HTV-2 flies next summer” Neyland added. DARPA is planning...

Chandipur-on-sea (Orissa): India's indigenously built Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor missile, capable of destroying hostile in-coming ballistic missiles, was successfully test-fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Wheeler Island off the Orissa's east coast on Monday. "The interceptor destroyed target missile at an altitude of 15 km," said Integrated Testing Range Director, SP Das. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) also sees it as a major success for India's indigenous air defence system. However, the defence sources said that "the trial, scheduled in last mid-March 2010, was abandoned in the last hour twice (on 15th and 16th March)...

What's faster than a speeding bullet, doesn't require a cape and isn't deterred by kryptonite? It's called the X-51 Waverider...and is the latest creation of Boeing and Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne. This past May it completed the longest hypersonic combustion (scramjet) powered flight in aviation history, reaching a speed of about Mach five, or five times the speed of sound. A scramjet engine is often likened to an air-breathing engine...it has no moving parts, and sucks in air from the atmosphere, rather than using oxidizers or additional fuel. It is new technology engineers say will allow aircraft to fly faster...

A recent United States Air Force scramjet test has hinted at a future where hypersonic vehicles streak through the sky at many times the speed of sound around the world, and perhaps even open up access to space. The experimental X-51A Waverider used a rocket booster and an air-breathing scramjet to reach a speed of Mach 5 and achieve the longest hypersonic flight ever powered by such an engine on May 26. That technology might not only deliver cargo quickly to different parts of the globe, but could also transform the space industry and spawn true space planes that take...

Boeing's X-51 WaveRider has made aviation history by completing the longest ever supersonic* combustion ramjet-powered flight. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flew for almost three and a half minutes in the skies off the southern California coast on Wednesday, reaching an altitude of about 70,000 feet and hitting hypersonic (Mach 5) speeds. The X-51 WaveRider scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) is being developed for the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) by Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. The goal of the program is to create a free-flying, scramjet-powered vehicle capable of operating continuously on...

Following the longest flight yet by an air-breathing scramjet engine, the X-51A Waverider team is waiting to see whether the largely successful first launch of the hypersonic demonstrator will unlock funding for further development of the ­technology. The X-51A was launched over the Pacific on May 26, achieving scramjet ignition and acceleration, but the engine ran for only 200 sec. rather than the 300 sec. planned, and the vehicle reached around Mach 5 instead of accelerating beyond Mach 6. When it began to slow down and telemetry was lost, the flight was terminated and the vehicle destroyed, says Charles Brink,...

An aircraft resembling a large bodyboard detached from a flying B-52 bomber and then shot across the Pacific on Wednesday at more than 3,500 mph, shattering aviation records and reigniting decades-long efforts to develop a vehicle that could travel faster than a speeding bullet. The unmanned X-51 WaveRider, powered by an air-breathing hypersonic engine that has virtually no moving parts, was launched midair off the coast near Point Mugu. It sped westward for 200 seconds before plunging into the ocean as planned. Previous attempts at hypersonic flights lasted no more than 10 seconds. "Everything went very well for a first...

The US Air Force on Wednesday test launched a hypersonic cruise missile, with the vehicle accelerating to Mach 6 before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, officials said. The Air Force said the test flight of the X-15A Waverider lasted more than 200 seconds, the longest ever hypersonic flight powered by scramjet propulsion. The previous record was 12 seconds in a NASA X-43 vehicle. "We are ecstatic to have accomplished most of our test points on the X-51A's very first hypersonic mission," Charlie Brink, program manager with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. "We...

The U.S. Air Force is set to successfully launch a Boeing X-51 for 300 seconds of hypersonic flight By the end of this month, the U.S. Air Force will begin a series of hypersonic tests that will send a scramjet into the atmosphere for about five minutes, at nearly five times the speed of sound. A scramjet is a supersonic combustion ramjet, while a ramjet is a jet engine using the engine's forward motion to compress air. If all goes as planned, this will be the first time that an aircraft will have flown at such speeds for more than...

A new U.S. launcher based on strategic missile hardware made its successful suborbital debut April 22, but the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) lost contact with the payload, an experimental hypersonic vehicle, soon thereafter, the agency said April 23. DARPA’s Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV)-2 was the first in a series of flight experiments meant to demonstrate technologies that could be the foundation for the United States’ next long-range conventional missile. It was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., atop a Minotaur 4 rocket. Built by Lockheed Martin Corp., the HTV-2 craft was supposed to glide over...

HAUNTED by the memory of a lost opportunity to kill Osama Bin Laden before he attacked the World Trade Center in New York, US military planners have won President Barack Obama’s support for a new generation of high-speed weapons that are intended to strike anywhere on Earth within an hour. Obama’s interest in Prompt Global Strike (PGS), a nonnuclear weapons programme, has alarmed China and Russia and complicated nuclear arms reduction negotiations. White House officials confirmed last week that the president, who won the Nobel peace prize last year, is considering the deployment of a new class of hypersonic guided...

In the cockpit of the sleek, black aircraft slung underneath the wing of the B-52 bomber, my interphone crackles. "Ah, Robert, it’s a lovely morning," says Jack Allavie, the commander of the B-52 launch aircraft. "Yes it is, Jack," I respond while running through the preflight checklist for our July 17, 1962 mission. The North American Aircraft X-15 was designed to investigate flight at hypersonic (Mach 5-plus) speeds and extremely high altitudes, and the effects of aerodynamic heating on aircraft surfaces. It was the first aircraft to fly Mach 4, Mach 5, and Mach 6—and I had the good fortune...

For nearly a decade, the Pentagon has grappled with finding a way to field a weapon with the speed and range of an intercontinental ballistic missile, but without the political ramifications of launching a nuke. Now Boeing says it has the answer: a revived 1980s-era hypersonic missile that could strike anywhere in the world in less than an hour. The company says it has a missile concept ready, and that if it gets the go-ahead and funding from the Pentagon, the weapon could be ready for fielding within 30 months. The missile, which was developed in the 1980s, is already...

The U.S. Air Force is gearing up for the first of four planned test flights of a hypersonic aircraft designed to operate for much longer durations and cover far greater distances than previous platforms of its type. The maiden flight of the X-51 Waverider aircraft — the first U.S. hypersonic vehicle to fly in six years — is scheduled to take place later in March. Boeing Defense, Space & Security Systems of St. Louis has been developing the aircraft since 2003 on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The missile-shaped X-51 will be...

The U.S. Air Force is gearing up for the first of four planned test flights of a hypersonic aircraft designed to operate for much longer durations and cover far greater distances than previous platforms of its type. The maiden flight of the X-51 Waverider aircraft — the first U.S. hypersonic vehicle to fly in six years — is scheduled to take place later in March. Boeing Defense, Space & Security Systems of St. Louis has been developing the aircraft since 2003 on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The missile-shaped X-51 will be...

In a flight test reminiscent of the early days of the historic X-15 program 50 years earlier, the X-51A Waverider was carried aloft for the first time over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 9 by an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52H Stratofortress. The "captive carry" test was a key milestone in preparation for the X-51 to light its supersonic combustion ramjet engine and propel the WaverRider at hypersonic speed for about 5 minutes, before plunging into the Pacific Ocean. That flight test is currently planned in about two months, said Charlie Brink, X-51A program manager with the...

The US Air Force Research Laboratory's X-51A WaveRider scramjet engine demonstrator completed its first captive-carry flight under the wing of its B-52H mothership from Edwards AFB on Dec. 9. The first free flight is planned for mid-February. The B-52 climbed to the planned launch altitude of 50,000ft during a 1.4h flight that checked out systems and telemetry. The next flight, planned for mid-January, will be a full dress-rehearsal for the first of four planned X-51A hypersonic test flights. The Boeing-built X-51A will be released at 50,000ft over the Pacific and accelerated to Mach 4.5 by a solid rocket booster. The...

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian and US scientists have successfully tested hypersonic aircraft technology which could revolutionise international flight, officials said. The trial was the first of up to 10 tests to be conducted at the Woomera desert range as part of a joint US-Australian military research operation, said Defence Science Minister Warren Snowdon. The programme, called Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HIFiRE), is investigating hypersonics technology and its potential for next generation aeronautics. "Hypersonics is the study of flight exceeding approximately five times the speed of sound, and this trial has successfully tested the flight and mission control systems that...

Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK - News) announced today that it successfully completed testing for a new class of hypersonic propulsion systems that will enable High Speed Strike Weapons and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to travel long distances at velocities more than five times the speed of sound. The most recent tests involved flight-weight, fuel-cooled Thermally Throated RamJet (TTRJ) technology built with conventional materials and manufacturing processes, and burning readily-available JP-10 jet fuel. This long-duration testing was funded by the U.S. Air Force and conducted at ATK's Ronkonkoma, N.Y. facility. This latest test series incorporates lessons learned during the design, manufacture and...

Boeing's HyFly hypersonic missile fails in bid for Mach 6 By Graham Warwick An attempt to fly a hypersonic cruise missile demonstrator at Mach 6 has failed, after the scramjet engine powering Boeing's HyFly malfunctioned and the air-launched vehicle plunged into the Pacific Ocean. The January 16 flight was the last under the HyFly programme, which was designed to demonstrate a missile-like vehicle with a range of 400nm (740km) and a maximum cruise speed exceeding Mach 6. The previous flight, in September 2007, failed to meet its objectives. The HyFly is powered by a dual-combustion ramjet (DCR) built by Aerojet....

A British-designed, 3,800mph (6,115kph) hypersonic airliner could one day ferry holidaymakers from Brussels to Sydney in five hours. The company aims to have the plane in service within 25 years, and believes that an Antipodean return trip would cost about as much as an existing business-class ticket – around £3,500. The project, known as the Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies or LAPCAT, is funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) to encourage the use of space-travel technology in aircraft design. According to Reaction Engines the A2 would be capable of sustained travel at Mach 5, or 3,800mph - more...

Silver Bullet: If it works, the HTV-3X will be the first reusable scramjet-powered plane. It will be able to take off from a runway, fly at speeds of up to Mach 6, land safely, and then do it again. Last March, engineers from Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) gathered in the control room of a high-temperature tunnel at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. After a countdown, a jet of blue flame fueled by methane gas roared down the 12-foot length of the tunnel. A low rumble crept into the control room. It sounded like a rocket firing, which actually...

Sustained hypersonic flight above speeds of Mach 5 by vehicles using air-breathing, jet-fuel-powered engines could become achievable within the next dozen years. Successful recent ground tests of jet-fueled, ramjet/scramjet demonstrator engines by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and Aerojet represent important progress toward flight-testing of three separate hypersonic-vehicle programs. In September, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) completed 10 months' testing of a sub-scale combustor for a hydrocarbon-powered, dual-mode ramjet engine designed to operate over a wide range of Mach-number speeds -- that is, multiples of the speed of sound. Using JP-7 jet fuel, PWR ran the combustor successfully at a variety...

Tiruchirapalli, Feb 2 (ANI): Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director of the Delhi based BrahMos Aerospace Centre A Sivathanu Pillai said here that India and Russia are working towards developing a Hypersonic Cruise Missile, a more advanced version of the BrahMos. Calling India a leader in the category of the supersonic missile system owing to the success of the BrahMos Cruise Missiles, Pillai, who is also the Chief Controller of the Research and Development wing of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), reiterated that the leadership can be sustained through mutual efforts. The 2.8 Mach supersonic speed...

Russia today conducted the much anticipated first flight test of its new Bulava SS-NX-30 intercontinental ballistic missile. The missile was successfully launched from the Dmitry Donskoy Typhoon-class submarine of the Northern Fleet from the White Sea, and it traveled to its designated target at the Kura testing range on the Kamchatka peninsula. The Bulava had undergone surface and underwater “pop-up” tests in September 2004 to test the submarine release mechanism, but it did not involve the firing of any missile engines. The test comes a day after President Putin affirmed that Russia continues to develop hypersonic maneuverable warheads for its...

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) said Wednesday that Russia is developing a new form of nuclear missile unlike those held by other countries, news agencies reported. Speaking at a meeting of the Armed Forces' leadership, Putin reportedly said that Russia is researching and successfully testing new nuclear missile systems. "I am sure that ... they will be put in service within the next few years and, what is more, they will be developments of the kind that other nuclear powers do not and will not have," Putin was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency....

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An unmanned NASA jet was launched over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday in a bid to demonstrate a radical new engine technology by flying at a world-record 7,000 mph - almost 10 times the speed of sound. The 12-foot-long X-43A "scramjet" was carried aloft under the wing of a B-52 aircraft and released over a test range off the Southern California coast. It was to fly under its own power at Mach 10 for about 10 seconds at 110,000 feet, then glide to a splash landing. The craft was designed to sink and will not be...

LOS ANGELES - In March, NASA (news - web sites) launched an experimental jet that reached a record-setting speed of about 5,000 mph. Now researchers want to leave that milestone in the dust. NASA's third and last X-43A "scramjet" was set to streak over the Pacific Ocean on Monday at 7,000 mph for 10 or 11 seconds — or 10 times the speed of sound. The first X-43A flight failed in June 2001 when the booster rocket used to accelerate it to flight speed veered off course and had to be destroyed. The second flight in March was a success,...

The US military has begun development of an ultra-high speed weapons system that would enable targets virtually anywhere on Earth to be hit within two hours of launch from the continental US. Ten companies have been given grants by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Pentagon for six-month "system definition" studies. If the Pentagon likes the results, a three-year design and development phase will begin. The ultimate aim, slated for around 2025, is a reusable Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV) that can take off from a conventional runway in the US and strike targets up to 16,700 kilometres (10,350...

  Edwards Air Force Base, California March 28, 2004 The experimental X-43A attached under the right wing of a modified NASA B-52 bomber moments before launch. Picture: AFP An experimental X-43 pilotless plane today broke the world speed record for an atmospheric engine, briefly flying at 7,700kph - seven times the speed of sound - over America, NASA said. The hypersonic aircraft, a cross between a jet and a rocket, was dropped from the wing of a modified B-52 bomber, boosted by an auxiliary rocket to an altitude of nearly 30,000 metres and flew on its own for about...

Indian defence scientists are aiming to fly an indigenous "hypersonic plane" in 2007, designed to cruise three times faster than existing fighter aircraft by consuming lesser fuel. An eight-metre technology demonstrator is being built by the Hyderabad-based Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) which will be powered by a Supersonic combustion ramjet (Scramjet) engine, that takes oxygen from the atmosphere and burns liquid hydrogen. "The ground tests of the engine would begin next year and we aim to fly the unmanned aircraft in 2007", DRDL Director Prahlada said in Bangalore. The aircraft would be integrated in India's aviation capital Bangalore...

Nine contractors have begun work to place a small satellite or other payload weighing about 1,000 pounds into a low Earth orbit. The project is part of the Force Application and Launch from the Continental United States, or FALCON, program. Task 1, Phase 1on the small launch vehicle includes developing conceptual designs, performance predictions, cost objectives and development and demonstration plans. Three more contractors have also begun work on the phase's Task 2, hypersonic weapon systems. This includes the common aero vehicle, the enhanced common aero vehicle and the hypersonic cruise vehicle. The CAV will be an unpowered, maneuverable, hypersonic...

A swift, powerful air strike can be an invaluable tool for U.S. military forces in battle, so long as it gets there fast enough, and the Department of Defense is developing just the aircraft for the job. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the United States Air Force (USAF) are seeking contractors to build an unmanned hypersonic aircraft capable of reaching any point on the world map in about two hours. Though initially a creature of war, such an aircraft could eventually serve as a springboard into space, developing technology that could lead to a single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft. The...

Featured Book: Dyna-Soar: Hypersonic Strategic Weapons System by Robert Godwin "Anyone who has followed this series of books may feel compelled to ask the question: Why the Dyna-Soar? They may well even ask: What is the Dyna-Soar?The main reason for including this particular vehicle in our ongoing series lies in its remarkably foresighted design. Clearly the Dyna-Soar/X-20 was way ahead of its time (even though it was not completed) and that sort of advance in technology is expensive; consuming a sizeable portion of the military budget and employing nearly eight thousand people for over six years.In many ways it...

4/30/2003 - HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFPN) -- A 192-pound, fully instrumented Missile Defense Agency payload traveled a little more than three miles in 6.04 seconds April 29, validating Holloman's high-speed test track hypersonic upgrades and setting a world land speed record. Air Force Materiel Command experts conducted the test in New Mexico's Tularosa Basin where Air Force officials witnessed a four-stage, rail-bound rocket sled reach Mach 8.5 or 6,416 mph. That equates to more than 31 football fields per second. The sled broke the standing world land speed record of Mach 8.1 for travel on rails, also set...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US scientists are trying to develop a new superfast missile that would be able to strike distant targets with lightning speed, all but denying future enemies of Washington a chance to escape, according to people familiar with the project. The highly-classified program, whose origins go back to the early 1980s, has taken on added importance in the wake of two daring, albeit inconclusive, recent attempts by the US military to kill Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. On March 20 and April 7, US forces used cruise missiles and bunker-busting bombs against two locations in Baghdad where intelligence...

Tuesday, 30 July, 2002, 06:52 GMT 07:52 UK Hypersonic jet launch raises hopes A perfect launch at Woomera A jet designed to fly at more than seven times the speed of sound has been tested in the Australian desert. Researchers believe the scramjet could revolutionise long-haul air travel - cutting the trip from London to Sydney to just two hours - and substantially cut the cost of putting small payloads into space. We've just got to analyse the data now but it all seemed to basically work The hypersonic engine was strapped on to a rocket and blasted more than...

Cruise missiles fly at a relatively leisurely speed of about 550 mph. That's slow enough to be shot down by advanced air-defense systems. But a new breed of hypersonic cruise missile is meant to zip past any foreseeable defense and smack transient targets almost instantly from hundreds of miles away. The engine for these futuristic speed demons was developed by Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. It was ground-tested by NASA on May 30 and performed flawlessly under simulated conditions at 90,000 feet and a speed of Mach 6.5. That's 6.5 times the speed of...