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An X-51A Waverider successfully launched from a B-52 Stratofortress, like the one shown here, on May 26, 2010. It was the longest supersonic combustion ramjet-powered hypersonic flight to date and accelerated to Mach 5.
Courtesy of U.S. Air Force photo/Mike Cassidy |
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EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., USA - May 26, 2010
An
X-51A Waverider flight-test vehicle successfully made the longest
supersonic combustion ramjet-powered hypersonic flight May 26 off the southern
California Pacific coast.
The more than
200 second burn by the
X-51's Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne-built air breathing
scramjet engine accelerated the vehicle to
Mach 5.
The previous longest scramjet burn in a flight test was
12 seconds in a
NASA X-43.
Air Force officials called the test, the first of four planned, an unqualified success.
The flight is considered the first use of a practical hydrocarbon fueled
scramjet in flight.
"We are ecstatic to have accomplished most of our test points on the X-51A's very first hypersonic mission," said
Charlie Brink, a X-51A program manager with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
"We equate this leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines."
The X-51 launched at about 10 a.m. from here, carried under the left wing of an
Air Force Flight Test Center B-52 Stratofortress.
Then, flying at
50,000 feet over the
Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center Sea Range, it was released.
Four seconds later an
Army Tactical Missile solid rocket booster accelerated the
X-51 to about Mach 4.8 mach before it and a connecting interstage were jettisoned.
The launch and separation were normal,
Mr. Brink said.
Four X-51A cruisers have been built for the
Air Force and the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency by industry partners
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and
Boeing.
Air Force officials intend to fly the three remaining
X-51A flight test vehicles this fall,
Mr. Brink said.
Air Force officials currently plan to fly each on virtually identical flight profiles, building knowledge from each successive flight.
Hypersonic flight, normally defined as beginning at
Mach 5, five times speed of sound, presents unique technical challenges with heat and pressure, which make conventional turbine engines impractical.
Program officials said producing thrust with a scramjet has been compared to lighting a match in a hurricane and keeping it burning.
"This first flight was the culmination of a six-year effort by a small, but very talented AFRL, DARPA and industry development team,"
Mr. Brink said.
"Now we will go back and really scrutinize our data. No test is perfect, and I'm sure we will find anomalies that we will need to address before the next flight. But anyone will tell you that we learn just as much, if not more, when we encounter a glitch."
Mr. Brink noted while development of the
X-51A's engine and the test program are complex, controlling costs has been a key objective.
The team has incorporated or adapted existing proven technologies and elected from the outset not to build recovery systems in the flight test vehicles, in an effort to control costs and focus funding on the
vehicle's fuel-cooled scramjet engine.
Mr. Brink said he believes the
X-51A program will provide knowledge required to develop the game changing technologies needed for future access to
space and hypersonic weapon applications.
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123206525