Fri, Sep 24, 2004
Dress Rehearsal For Free Flight
The captive carry flight of NASA's X-43A hypersonic research
aircraft originally scheduled earlier this month has been reset for
Sept. 27. Should weather or other concerns force a postponement,
the captive carry mission could be flown the following day, Sept.
28.
This captive carry flight is a "dress rehearsal" for the planned
free flight later this fall that is targeted to reach a speed of up
to Mach 10, or about 7,000 mph. The captive flight duplicates all
operational functions of the planned Mach 10 flight and serves as a
training exercise for staff, except that the X-43A and its modified
Pegasus booster are not released from the launch aircraft and their
engines are not ignited.
Two leaky hydraulic packs on the B-52B mothership that forced
the captive carry mission to be aborted before takeoff on two
successive days in early September have been replaced.
The X-43A is powered by a revolutionary supersonic-combustion
ramjet -- or "scramjet" -- engine. If successful, the Mach 10
flight will break all speed records for an aircraft powered by an
air-breathing engine.
It is part of the Hyper-X hypersonic research program led by
NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, and operated
jointly by NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton (VA), and Dryden
Flight Research Center, Edwards (CA). The program aims to
demonstrate air-breathing engine technologies that promise to
increase payload capacity - or reduce vehicle size for the same
payload - for future hypersonic aircraft and reusable space launch
vehicles.
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