US defence contractor Alliant Techsystems has successfully tested a rocket-launched scramjet at Mach 5.5. The project, in association with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Office of Naval Research (ONR) - and which forms part of the Freeflight Atmospheric Scramjet Test Technique (FASTT) programme - did not reach the heady Mach 10 achieved by the hydrogen-fuelled X-43A back in November 2004, but it is the first "freeflight of a scramjet-powered vehicle using conventional liquid hydrocarbon jet fuel".
The FASTT vehicle was launched from the Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia, on Saturday 10 December. The 106-inch, 11-inch diameter vehicle was blasted to 60,000 feet by its booster rocket, at which point it separated from the booster and "the Scramjet engine ignited and propelled the vehicle at approximately 5,300 feet per second - or Mach 5.5". After around 15 seconds of propelled flight during which "critical engineering data was captured via on-board sensors and tracking radars", the FASTT descended for an Atlantic splash-down... |
