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Successful Ground Testing Brings Hyper-X Closer to
Flight
They can design planes that fly at hypersonic speeds, but NASA
Langley researchers cannot slow the approach of the Hyper-X
vehicle's flight date. And once Hyper-X takes off in May
2000, it will mark a series of "firsts" for this unique
aircraft.
 NASA is developing Hyper-X technology for aircraft and
reusable space launch vehicles that would weigh less and carry more
payload than conventional rocket launch systems. The full-scale
Hyper-X vehicle at NASA Langley's
8-Foot High Temperature Tunnel is the first of its kind
to successfully test at seven times the speed of sound or Mach 7
wind tunnel conditions. At 30,000 feet, Mach 1 is approximately 660
miles per hour.
The engine being tested is a spare flight engine of the Mach 7,
Hyper-X scramjet design. A scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet)
propulsion system has no moving parts and uses the speed of the
aircraft for its operation. Combustion happens when compressed air
traveling at hypersonic speed ignites its hydrogen fuel. This
flight design eliminates the need for onboard oxygen unlike
conventional rocket systems, and the reduced weight would allow a
vehicle to carry more payload. The Langley designed Hyper-X
scramjet engine will mark the world's first hypersonic flight of an
independent, air-breathing scramjet aircraft.
Langley manages the Hyper-X program including on-site engine and
aerodynamic ground testing in several wind tunnels that provide a
near replication of the flight environment. Dryden Flight Research
Center in California manages the last phase of testing where actual
flight research takes place; Dryden has taken delivery of the first
Hyper-X (designated X-43A) research aircraft built by MicroCraft
Corp.
Each Hyper-X vehicle will ride atop a booster rocket from
Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Va., which will be air-launched by
Dryden's B-52 airplane. After being launched from the B-52, the
X-43 will separate from the rocket at a predetermined altitude and
velocity then fly a pre-programmed trajectory, conducting
aerodynamic and propulsion experiments before it impacts into the
Pacific Ocean.
Hyper-X propulsion could be a high speed, efficient means of
moving aircraft through the lower atmosphere and other vehicles
into space, but it has never been tested in an independent single
flight vehicle design. Testing at NASA Langley will continue
through the end of 1999 while two additional X-43 aircraft are
being built for future flight tests. One will fly at Mach 7 and
another at Mach 10 (another first at approximately 6,800 miles per
hour) within 12 to 18 months after the initial Mach 7 test
flight.
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(NOTE TO EDITORS: Photos and videotapes to accompany this
release are available by calling the Langley Research Center,
Hampton, Va., at the number listed above.)
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