Latest NASA X-43 Stories

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The next generation of flight is undergoing a test tomorrow over the Pacific Ocean, paving the way for non-stop Paris trips in just a few hours in the future. The X-51A WaveRider is being prepared at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. This aircraft could take you from New York to London in less than an hour. The experimental aircraft uses a "scramjet" engine that allows it to travel at hypersonic speeds, reaching Mach 4.5...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., is entering into a space act agreement with Sierra Nevada Corp. Space Systems of Louisville, Colo., to provide key wind tunnel testing of a new spacecraft designed to transport crew and cargo to and from the International Space Station. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Marshall will perform wind tunnel tests for Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser...

When a jet is flying faster than the speed of sound, one small mistake can tear it apart.And when the jet is so experimental that it must fly unmanned, only a computer control system can pilot it.Ohio State University engineers have designed control system software that can do just that -- by adapting to changing conditions during a flight.Government agencies have been developing faster-than-sound vehicles for decades. The latest supersonic combustion ramjets -- called scramjets -- burn air...

Kevin Petersen, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Dryden Flight Research Center in California, says he will retire next month. A veteran aerospace engineer and manager with 38 years experience at Dryden, Petersen has served as the center's director for more than 10 years and is the longest-serving field center director currently at NASA, officials said. Dryden's deputy center director, David McBride, has been named acting director. NASA officials said that...

BANGALORE, India -- India has joined a handful of countries with the technology to build a new type of supersonic rocket that could reduce satellite launching costs by nearly 90 percent, the nation's space agency said Tuesday. The so-called Supersonic Combustion Ramjet - or Scramjet - technology should eventually help India build lighter and faster rockets, the Indian Space Research Organization said. Conventional rockets carry their own oxygen to burn as fuel, but Scramjet rockets will take...

NASA -- NASA has been officially recognized for setting the speed record for a jet-powered aircraft by Guinness World Records. NASA set the record in November during the third and final flight of the experimental X-43A scramjet (supersonic-combustion ramjet) project. The X-43A demonstrated an advanced form of air-breathing jet engine could power an aircraft nearly 10 times the speed of sound. Data from the unpiloted, 12-foot-long research vehicle show its revolutionary engine worked...