NASA Tests X-43A

An anonymous reader writes "NASA TV has live coverage of the launch of the X-43A scram jet flight. Hopes are that the unmanned vehicle will reach speeds in excess of mach 7-10. The last flight a few years ago failed." Stephen Watts sends this link for X-43A background information.

Comments

Re:Audio?

[Grell]

Yes,

mind bogglingly detailed step by step audio tho.

I'm waiting for the v/o to be drowned out by the scram jet.

Sweet feed though.

G.

Re:Audio?

[JPriest]

There is audio but is running several seconds behind the video feed for some reason.

awesome picts

[aarku]

Nasa has a lot of interesting pictures of the X-43A posted.

Inside the ram file

[inertia187]

rtsp://rmbcast.nasa-us2e.speedera.net/alias_ashbur n1_btn_2/broadcast/rmbcast.nasa-us2e/rmbcast_nasa- us2e_dec312003_0922_52880.rm
rtsp://rmbcast.nasa- us2w.speedera.net/alias_sjose_abovn_2/broadcast/rm bcast.nasa-us2w/rmbcast_nasa-us2w_dec312003_0925_5 3003.rm
rtsp://rmbcast.nasa-us2e.speedera.net/ali as_ashburn1_btn_2/encoder/rmbcast.nasa-us2e/rmbcas t_nasa-us2e_jan022004_1034_52875.rm
rtsp://rmbcas t.nasa-us3w.speedera.net/alias_denver_l3/broadcast /rmbcast.nasa-us3w/rmbcast_nasa-us3w_jan042004_173 2_53351.rm

Re:launch it allready! *dammit*

[fm6]

There gonna launch in about 10 minutes. But so what? That's just the booster rocket. The actually test will occur off over the Pacific where nobody can see it. And it will only last 10 seconds!

And probably irrelevent, since there's no funding for future tests.

play by play

[aarku]

"All stations we are a go for launch at this time..."
"10 seconds launch on my mark"
"5 4 3 2 1 launch"
"Ignition!"
"Guidance on"
"we are supersonic"
(bunch of everything is nominal)
past mach 3
separation of booster
fuel is off
recovery complete
"Good job"
"Really pretty"

Re:play by play

[NiKnight3]

Picture of X-43A ignition and control room here

Sorry

[j_sp_r]

Sorry for spamming, but it worked, nasa is cheering on the newsfeeds!! Short flight btw

Launch

[Senjutsu]

Success. Launch and recovery went off without a hitch. There's a lot of happy looking people in control right now.

Passed Mach 5 before the loss of signal

[Drathus]

Looks like it topped out just over Mach 5. Not too damn bad.

Re:Passed Mach 5 before the loss of signal

[Taurim]

They have done waaaay better in the past :

Mach 6.7 with the X15A-2. It was a manned aircraft.

The date ? Third of October 1967 !!!

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/History/Speeches/x-15_s pe ech/x15-1spch.html

Re:Passed Mach 5 before the loss of signal

[More Trouble]

The X15A-2 was a rocket. To wit:

The X-15 engine was an XLR-99 single chamber rocket. It produced 60,000 pounds of thrust and it burned 18,000 pounds of liquid oxygen and anhydrous ammonia in 85 seconds. The propellants were fed by a steam driven turbopump; the source of the steam was hydrogen peroxide decomposed by passing through a silver screen catalyst bed.

What they tested today doesn't carry oxygen, instead scooping it out of the atmosphere.

:w

Re:Passed Mach 5 before the loss of signal

[Drathus]

And now according to the data recovery it passed Mach 7 (4,780 MPH) after the signal was lost before it began it's deceleration.

Not too bad at all.

Re:Passed Mach 5 before the loss of signal

[Moofie]

It's a /totally different/ thing.

A ramjet has the air-fuel mixture traveling at sub-sonic speeds in the combustion chamber. The air is compressed by a system of shock waves in the inlet. As the air is compressed, it slows down and heats up. Then you light a fire in there, with an apparatus similar to an afterburner flame holder.

A scramjet keeps the flow moving supersonically throughout the combustion chamber (hence Supersonic Combusting RAMJET). Mixing in fuel, and successfully igniting the mixture before it goes out the back of the airplane is seriously difficult.

Imagine trying to light a match while sticking it out the window of a car. Now go two orders of magnitude faster. Seriously non-trivial.

Mach Freakin' 5

[Goyuix]

mach 5 = 3,806.03525 mph
mach 5 = 6,125.22 km/h

Re:Mach Freakin' 5

[rarose]

If you check out this you'll see that at 100,000 feet the speed of sound is 684mph.

Re:Mach Freakin' 5

[Guppy06]

Somebody wasn't paying attention to their fluid mechanics and/or thermodynamics classes.

Speed of sound at 1 atm pressure != speed of sound at obnoxiously high altitudes and near vacuum pressures. And that doesn't even begin to consider the non-uniform variations in temperature with altitude or the different mix of gasses in the air that high up.

At the very least you have way too many decimal places in both your numbers.

Re:Mach Freakin' 5

[mindstrm]

Some of us didn't take fluid mechanics and/or thermodynamic classes, but we still know that:

• Mach at sea level is about 761mph
  
• At 50,000 ft, it's about 660mph
  
• At 100,000 ft it's about 775mph
  
• At 150,000 ft it's about 703mph
  
• At 400,000 ft at the edge of the thermosphere, it's 681mph.
  

All those numbers are in the same ballpark.

Some of us remember that the speed of sound is affected chiefly by temperature and not pressure.

It's easier to go to higher mach speeds at higher elevation becauset here is less resistance due to friction.... not because the speed of sound is significantly slower.

Charts and stuff

Cheers

Re:launch it allready! *dammit*

[flewp]

Actually, it didn't really crash. I'm pretty sure they blew up before it had time to crash. IOW, it didn't blow up itself, they saw the deviation and had it self destruct.

Re:Not that fast

[dunedan]

so, the apollo missions did mach who knows how much faster than mach 5 with THREE pilots.

The point is that this was an air breather and those were all rocket based.

Re:Not that fast

[Drathus]

> Mach 5 is kinda meh. X15-A2 did mach 6.8 with pilot, in the 1960's

Yes, it did. However the scram jet is a significant improvement just in terms of fuel savings. Not having to carry the oxygen itself and having the system work means more then the final speed it reached.

Mach 7 was reached

[Anonymous Coward]

They did it!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/357 5561. stm

It broke the speed record...

[SmackCrackandPot]

Sky News

BBC

Clip of launch at BBC

[johnjay]

I found a clip of the launch at the BBC. I can't seem to figure out where NASA would be hiding the clip.

The BBC page is here. There's a link to the right of the photo at the top of the page.

Ramjet != Scramjet

[linoleo]

From Wikipedia:

When the air inside a ramjet exceeds the speed of sound (meaning an aircraft speed of around Mach 5+) combustion fails to occur properly. This is overcome in a scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet). Scramjets are a new concept still in the research stages. Usually, the inlet is much wider (typically the entire underside of the craft) so the compression is less and the air remains at supersonic speeds. Some designs use reactive chemicals or gases other than standard jet fuel. Normally, the design of the jet is much more complex. Like a ramjet the scramjet must already be moving extremely fast before it will start working, but theoretically, speeds in excess of Mach 20 are possible.

if you missed it

[minus_273]

if you missed it, BBC has a story and a video clip here

um, booster rocket took it to Mach 6

[real_smiff]

Not to put a damper on things, but according to the BBC article, it was already going at about Mach 6 at final seperation thanks to a conventional rocket booster. Then the scramjet took it up another Mach in 10 seconds. That is an excellent demonstration of the scramjet IMHO, but if it hadn't made Mach >5 (or >6) something would have been very wrong! ;)

Re:Good call..

[trixillion]

Check your algebra. You are off by three orders of maginitude. So everywhere you wrote km per frame change that to m per frame.

Re:AirForce saying: new engine makes possible new

[ScottKin]

Bzzzzzt - WRONG ANSWER!

Energia is the *current* Russian Heavy-lift launch vehicle.

The Rocket you are thinking of is the N-1:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1883348.stm

http://members.aol.com/nodin/N1pages/N1index1.ht ml

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/n1.html

--ScottKin

More Details on Successful Flight

[Pooua]

"EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California: An experimental X-43 pilotless plane has broken the world speed record for an atmospheric engine, briefly flying at 7,700 kilometers (4,780 miles) per hour -- seven times the speed of sound, NASA said.

"The hypersonic aircraft, a cross between a jet and a rocket, was dropped from the wing of a modified B-52 bomber, boosted by an auxiliary rocket to an altitude of nearly 100,000 feet (30,000 meters) and flew on its own power for 10 seconds, said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

"After the 10-second test firing, the X-43A glided through the atmosphere conducting a series of aerodynamic maneuvers for about six minutes before plunging into the Pacific Ocean, as planned."

Channel News Asia: Experimental hypersonic aircraft breaks world speed record, flies at Mach 7

"A minute before 2 p.m., the craft was dropped from 40,000 feet. A few seconds later, the rocket flared, boosting the jet skyward on a streak of flame and light. At about 100,000 feet, the rocket was dropped away.

"The scramjet then took over, using up about two pounds of gaseous hydrogen fuel before it glided and then plunged into the Pacific Ocean about 400 miles off the California coast."

Mercury News: Preliminary data shows NASA jet streaked 5,000 mph in test flight

Re:Free ramjet?

[rebelcool]

probably wouldnt need to. The speed it would impact the ocean would bash the hell out of it.

Scramjets are very simple (mechanically) devices. No moving parts. However, they are geometrically, extremely complex and precise. The speed it would hit the ocean would damage the combustion chamber to the extent it would be about as useful as a scramjet made from a tin can.

Re:Mach? What is that?

[Jorkapp]

Mach is a measure of speed in relation to the speed of sound (Vs). (Vs) varies with Temperature (t), and is calculated as such:

Vs = 332 + 0.6 * t
(Where Vs is in Meters/Sec, and t is in ^C)

For example, an aircraft travelling at Mach 2 with an atmospheric temperature of 20^C would be travelling at:

2(332 + 0.6 * 20)
2(332 + 12)
2(334)
688m/s

Whilist Warp speeds vary per series. In the original series, warp factor was a multiplier. So Warp 3, Kirk's enterprise would be travelling at:

3(3.0 * 10^8)
3(300000000)
900000000 m/s (Pretty damned fast)

In the newer series' (TNG, DS9, Voy, Ent), it acts as a power.
So at Warp 4, Picard's enterprise would be speeding at

(3.0 * 10^8)^4
300000000^4 m/s
8.1^33m/s (Even more firepower!)

"Pretty funny after all those Star Trek haters claimed such speeds were impossible."

Henry Ford himself said that man would not be capable of reaching speeds beyind 65mph. Now we have Hypersonic Scramjets. Western Union said that the phone is useless. Now we have infrastructres largely based upon the telephone. Lord Kelvin said that Heavier-Than-Air flight was impossible. Now there are 747's that weight much more than an equivalent mass of air. IBM said that there was a world market for about 5 computers. Now there are millions of computers situated around the globe.

I'll stop there.

Re:Mach? What is that?

[rv8]

Mach is a measure of speed in relation to the speed of sound (Vs). (Vs) varies with Temperature (t), and is calculated as such:

Vs = 332 + 0.6 * t
(Where Vs is in Meters/Sec, and t is in ^C)

The above equation is a very crude linearization, that only gives close to the right answer. The speed of sound is actually proportional to the square root of the temperature.

a = SQRT(1.4*286.99*T)
(Where a = speed of sound in m/s, 286.9 is the gas constant for air and T is the temperature in degrees Kelvin)