NASA to Fly 5,000-Mph Unmanned Aircraft
Posted on: Saturday, 27 March 2004, 06:00 CST
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Three years after the first test flight ended in an explosion, NASA engineers on Saturday hoped for success with a second attempt to fly an experimental plane capable of reaching speeds approaching 5,000 mph.
Success for the unpiloted, hypersonic X-43A would mean 10 seconds of flight powered by an exotic type of air-breathing jet engine called a supersonic-combustion ramjet, or scramjet.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration built the 12-foot aircraft under a $250 million program aimed at developing planes capable of flying around the world in a few hours.
NASA and the military have pursued scramjet technology because it theoretically could cut the cost of rocket-speed travel. Rockets must carry their own oxygen to combust the fuel they carry, increasing the weight they must lift during launch, but scramjets could scoop it out of the atmosphere.
The earliest such a plane would enter operation is 2025.
Under the schedule for Saturday's planned test flight, a modified B-52 bomber would carry the X-43A and a rocket engine from Edwards Air Force Base in the high desert to an altitude of 40,000 feet and drop both over the Pacific about 50 miles west of Los Angeles.
The rocket would ignite and boost the 2,800-pound X-43A to nearly 100,000 feet before releasing it to fly under its own power. If the craft's engine performed as designed, it would fly for 10 seconds, glide for six minutes more and splash down 450 miles off the California coast.
The first X-43A flight ended in failure June 2, 2001, when the modified Pegasus rocket used to accelerate the plane veered off course and had to be destroyed. An investigation board found preflight analyses failed to predict how the rocket would perform, and its control system was unable to maintain stable flight.
NASA's role in developing the technology remains in doubt, as the agency recently cut funding for more advanced versions of the X-43A.
A third X-43A could fly as early as the fall.
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On the Net:
NASA X-43A: http://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/X-43-overview.html
Dryden Flight Research Center: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/
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