Wed, Aug 24, 2005
Japan Will Test Next-Gen SST
For those lamenting the retirement
of the Concorde, take heart. Something new is on the horizon and it
could be even faster. And even though this is primarily a Japanese
project, the makers of the Concorde, Airbus and its parent company
EADS, are involved.
It's being called the "next-generation" SST, a needle-like
aircraft designed to fly at better than Mach 2. Sponsored by the
Japanese Space Agency (JAXA), the new aircraft is about to undergo
a second round of flight tests over the Australian Outback as early
as next month.
The first such aircraft flew three years ago, but didn't fly far
or long. Instead, the unmanned prototype prematurely separated from
a booster rocket designed to accelerate the load to an altitude of
more than 12 miles. The whole thing crashed in the desert.
"We've made some improvements so
that won't happen again," JAXA spokesman Takaaki Akuto told the
Associated Press in Tokyo Tuesday. "This is a pretty important
test."
If the tests are successful, they could lead to more experiments
designed to put a 300-passenger Concorde replacement on the ramp by
2020.
But any successor to the venerable Concorde, which flew for both
British Airways and Air France, will have to overcome the same
issues that plagued the European version during its 34-year career:
high noise levels and high fuel consumption.
If this year's $10 million test is successful, Airbus and
Mitsubishi, along with their partners, would split $1.84 million in
research funds during each of the next three years looking for
answers to those problems.
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