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NASA Completes Test Flight of Super-Fast Jet

Posted on: Wednesday, 17 November 2004, 12:00 CST

NASA completes test flight of super-fast jet

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- NASA on Tuesday successfully conducted the final and fastest test flight of an unmanned experimental jet, at a record nearly 10 times the speed of sound, or 11,260 km per hour,it is reported.

The third X-43A aircraft of NASA beat a previous record of Mach 6.83, or 6.83 times of the speed of sound, for a jet-powered vehicle. The Mach 6.83 record was set on March 27 by NASA's second X- 43A.

"This flight is a key milestone and a major step toward the future possibilities for producing boosters for sending large and critical payloads into space in a reliable, safe, inexpensive manner," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said in a statement available on its website.

"These developments will also help us advance the Vision for Space Exploration, while helping to advance commercial aviation technology," he added.

The final test flight had been postponed for one day because of electronics problems found shortly before the planned takeoff.

The Tuesday mission was the final and fastest flight to test the operation of the "scramjet," which is a new type of engine that burns fuel in a stream of air compressed by the forward speed of the aircraft.

In the Tuesday test flight over the Pacific off the coast of Southern California, the X-43A and its modified Pegasus booster rocket were first lifted to the launch altitude and released from under the right wing of a B-52B heavy launch aircraft.

In moments, the rocket carried the X-43A to about 33,000 meters and separated. The scramjet then ignited and reached a speed of around Mach 9.6.

After that, the X-43A began gliding and performed preprogrammed maneuvers before it splashed into the Pacific Ocean. NASA has said it is standard procedure not to recover the craft.

NASA engineers said at a press conference after the flight that the scramjet had operated for 20 seconds.

The X-43A launched Tuesday was the last of three built for NASA 's Hyper-X program. The first X-43A flight failed in 2001 when its rocket booster veered off course and was destroyed midair in June 2001.

The X-43A can get its oxygen fuel directly from the atmosphere as it travels at very high speed. In comparison, rockets must carry huge tanks of oxygen for mixture with hydrogen to create combustion. Unlike rockets, scramjets can slow down and be flown like airplanes.

NASA says scramjet can ultimately provide safer and cheaper high speed flight. Scramjet technology could be used to develop hypersonic missiles and airplanes or reusable space launch vehicles, possibly achieving speeds of at least Mach 15.

The 3.65-meter long X-43A has a wingspan of 1.5 meters. NASA had provided it with further protection from temperatures to be generated from air friction during high speed flight. In a Mach 10 flight, the heat can measure as high as 2,000 degrees Celsius, compared to about 1,430 degrees in the Mach 7 test flight in March.

The 230 million-US dollar scramjet research project has taken about eight years.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

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