Planned for Tuesday, March 22, 2011 an X-51A will be carried up to 50,000 feet slung underneath the wing of a B-52 from California's Edwards Air Force Base to fly over the Pacific Ocean, notes UPI.
The high-speed craft will be dropped, and a booster rocket will fire up to get the Waverider up to Mach 4.5, which is when the scramjet kicks in. The booster rocket is jettisoned, and then the X-51A goes hypersonic with the goal of Mach 6 or better, according to The Register.
The X-51A Waverider uses a scramjet engine, which uses no moving parts at all but is designed to achieve speeds anywhere from Mach 12 to Mach 24. Mach 24 is more than18,000 miles per hour.
It is the second of four test flights for the $246.5 million Waverider program, begun in December 2003. It is being done to demonstrate technology the Air Force hopes can eventually be used for more efficient transport of payloads into orbit.
The high-speed craft will be dropped, and a booster rocket will fire up to get the Waverider up to Mach 4.5, which is when the scramjet kicks in. The booster rocket is jettisoned, and then the X-51A goes hypersonic with the goal of Mach 6 or better, according to The Register.
The X-51A Waverider uses a scramjet engine, which uses no moving parts at all but is designed to achieve speeds anywhere from Mach 12 to Mach 24. Mach 24 is more than18,000 miles per hour.
It is the second of four test flights for the $246.5 million Waverider program, begun in December 2003. It is being done to demonstrate technology the Air Force hopes can eventually be used for more efficient transport of payloads into orbit.
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