
Here we also have a cool video of previous NASA supersonic tests that likely overlap with the tech that will be used in this project.
The X-43 is an unmanned experimental hypersonic aircraft with multiple planned scale variations meant to test various aspects of hypersonic flight. It was part of NASA’s Hyper-X program and has set several airspeed records for jet-propelled aircraft. The X-43 is the fastest aircraft on record at approx. 7000 miles per hour (10,461 km/h).
A winged booster rocket with the X-43 placed on top, called a “stack”, is drop launched from a larger carrier plane. After the booster rocket (a modified first stage of the Pegasus rocket) brings the stack to the target speed and altitude, it is discarded, and the X-43 flies free using its own engine, a scramjet…
Traveling at Mach speeds produces a lot of heat due to the compression shock waves involved in supersonic drag. At high Mach speeds, heat can become so intense that metal portions of the airframe melt. The X-43A compensated for this by cycling water behind the engine cowl and sidewall leading edges, cooling those surfaces…
We hope you like the video and look forward to more progress on this!
thanks to quartz for the great info
thanks to NASA for the great image
