LOS ANGELES – A tiny unmanned NASA scramjet soared above the Pacific Ocean Tuesday at nearly 10 times the speed of sound, or almost 7,000 mph, in a successful demonstration of a radical new engine technology.
The 12-foot-long X-43A supersonic combustion ramjet reached about Mach 9.6 or slightly higher, said research engineer Randy Voland, leader of the scramjet propulsion team at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base.
The exotic aircraft flew under its own power for about 10 seconds after separating from a booster rocket at 111,000 feet, then glided to a splash landing about 800 miles offshore. Analysis of data to determine the exact performance will take several months, but mission officials were jubilant.
“Once again we made aviation history. We did that in March when we went seven times the speed of sound and now we’ve done it right around 10 times the speed of sound,” said Vince Rausch, Hyper-X program manager from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.
The X-43A, mounted on a Pegasus rocket used to boost it to flight speed, was carried under the wing of a B-52 aircraft and released at an altitude of 40,000 feet over a test range off the Southern California coast. The rocket motor then fired for a 90-second ascent.
Like its predecessors, the X-43A will not be recovered from the ocean.
The flight was the last in a $230 million-plus effort to test technology most likely to be initially used in military aircraft, such as a bomber that could reach any target on Earth within two hours of takeoff from the United States, or to power missiles.
Scramjets may also provide an alternative to rockets for space launches.
NASA photo
The X-43A scramjet is released from a B-52 Tuesday off the Southern California coast.
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