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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.
Is anyone getting audio for this feed? Perhaps it will start up near the launch.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
So... Who wants to bet that it'll ignite the atmosphere? ;-)
"Launch it allready! *dammit*"
... how any confirmations/checks to they have to go thru? They've done like a zillion +one checks/confirms... by now.
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
Noooo, don't Slashdot it, you insensitive clods!
;-(
I was getting a great feed of the boring pre-launch stuff for the last 2 hours, now y'all'll've gone and ruined it
They are about to launch the actual scramjet...
and destroy it again because they forgot something
good idea
And, no, I should not have used the goddamn Preview mode first.
Please give us the verbal rundown. I'm on a system without Realmedia.
We've been watching this feed for 90 minutes and now it will be slashdotted, insensitive bastards :(
/me prays for nasa's bandwidth
He who defends everything, defends nothing. -- Fredrick The Great
Nasa has a lot of interesting pictures of the X-43A posted.
The last time they launched the (unmanned) scramjet, it crashed.
Well, don't turn it off. As I was typing this they said it's launching in the next 9 minutes.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
They're getting ready to launch. Begin nailbiting. They're transferring to internal power now.
Wow this is fun... lvl to internal
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
If this happens to get slashdotted in the next 8ish minutes, FoxNews is covering the scramjet live.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
I have DirecTV and I have a multisat dish. Mainly this is so that I can get HD content, but you get a few extra channels. Most of which are useless most of the time. E.g. Rural Farm Channel. Occasionally, NASA TV has something interesting on it, but nothing that I've ever thought to TiVo.
But Mach 7-10? That's worth putting on the TiVo. Fortunately, it's an incredibly still picture, so this thing compresses well and doesn't take up much space on the disk.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
And probably irrelevent, since there's no funding for future tests.
Yeah, I was going to mention something about a Mars probes and the Hubble, but... club; horse carcass...
:(
I got caught by the sift rotation monster, and I'm at work. We have a Dish network setup, and I was watching it on NASA TV. My break ended before I could see it launch.
The party's over
Launch vehicle launch (the booster rocket).
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Even if its moving at mach 7...we can still slashdot it!
Regards
elFarto
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...and they can't show a readable countdown timer on the screen.
IGNITION && SUPERSONIC
Here we go. Let's see how well it does.
The funny part, when they finally did launch you couldn't see the damn thing.
They should have launched 2. One with the camera and one doing the test.
Rod Taylor
Everyone at NASA is clapping, looks like it went well! Definately better than last time! No word yet on how fast it got up to.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
"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"
Sorry for spamming, but it worked, nasa is cheering on the newsfeeds!! Short flight btw
Success. Launch and recovery went off without a hitch. There's a lot of happy looking people in control right now.
... shares the channel with Philadelphia Park Horse racing.... so instead of scramjets i saw ponies. yay for broadband!
I get the NASA channel in my home, and I just watched the vehicle hit a peak of Mach 5. Does this mean the test was unsucessful? Also, was what I was watching live or not? I just got up from the TV about a minute ago and they were beginning the return checklist.
Looks like it topped out just over Mach 5. Not too damn bad.
I'll be really impressed when it goes to 11.
Not only for the successful launch, but for the high quality Real Video feed. I wonder how many clients they were feeding simultaneously? I am quite impressed.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Tests completed through Mach 5, it seems. I thought this would go to Mach 7?
wowwwy, mach 5 it's a shame that they have lost data from the rv though, hopefully they will get it back
I've always liked stuff that goes fast. I have one son that is really into anything science. I have another that is into anything that goes fast and/or blows up, so we were all pretty happy.
Matt
it all uses the same bandwidth pool right?
mach 5 = 3,806.03525 mph
mach 5 = 6,125.22 km/h
the vehicle is down, in the water.
Save time now so you can waste it later
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.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
While all the other news channels, Canadian and American, were just replaying the same news over and over, CP24 chose to stick with about 20 minutes of continuous live coverage from NASA, with scientists commenting over the phone.
It's heartening to know that there's still a bunch of people in that company who don't think we're all clueless morons.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
And probably irrelevent, since there's no funding for future tests.
Ah, but if it is successful, they may direct more funding towards this kind of research. Even if it isn't successful, they might learn enough to still warrant putting in more funding.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
give NASA credit for keeping their servers up during that. That, or not too many of you guys were watching. I sure wish they put a camera on the thing, though.
What?
Yeah, we did, except it went astray and as I recall it probably made a crater somewhere. Not sure whether they ended up finding or not.
Anyway I've been watching the stream for the past hour and a half.. launch time was 6:00 AM here. Time, for, sleep. But happy sleep because all went well with the scramjet!
It's a Bagel.
I'm actually watching the windows media stream live in totem as we speak, works like a charm without the real player linux vulnerabilities...
They should have launched 2. One with the camera and one doing the test.
I'm pretty sure they only had one remaining test vehicle. Also, why waste money sending two (one with a camera) when you're not even sure one would even be successful? Also, at that high of speeds, and all that, video might not be the best information gathering tool.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
mach 7 = 5 328.44936 mph
mach 7 = 8 575.308 km/h
mach 10 = 7 612.07051 mph
mach 10 = 12 250.44 km/h
Don't know where you got mach 5...
010010100110010101110011011100110 110010100100000010100110110110101 1010010111010001101000
My player shows a real saw on the bandwidth chart -- from the minimum of 32.1Kbps to the astounding maximum of 274.8Kbps with the average being 147.5Kbps -- just a notch below 150Kbps at which the thing is encoded :-(.
I'm wondering, is it the speedera.net -- NASA's ISP -- or speakeasy.net -- my ISP?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Oh... nevermind. I know where you got mach 5 now. I lost sound while I was watching the video feed so I didn't realize quite what happened.
I reckon mach 5 is still better than what happened last time though.
010010100110010101110011011100110 110010100100000010100110110110101 1010010111010001101000
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.
Is Scheduled for 4:00 pm PST
I had to laugh out-loud when one of the NASA folks (S2?) referred to the B52 as a BUFF. (Air Force jargon: Big Ugly Fat Fscker ...)
Still chuckling a bit. =)
James
> 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.
They couldn't have launched it yet, it's only 4:28 pm cst. if it is scheduled to launch at 4pst they've got another hour an a half at least.
If it's not down too far underwater, it might be worth salvaging and auctioning on E-bay.
NASA TV is going to replay the launch soon. Right now they are showing a board stating that they will replay the launch shortly...
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
If you missed it they are going to show it again. Also dont miss press briefing at 4PM pacific time.
They did it!7 5561. stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/35
Sky News
BBC
nasatv. We can get the details then.
This space available.
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.
Damn it. Get a clue. This is a new type of propulsion. Well, not that new, but it's the first time it's worked this well. For me, using a rocket propelled object to reach high speeds isn't all that impressive.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
Hopes are that the unmanned vehicle will reach speeds in excess of mach 7-10.
...speeds in excess of mach 7.
What is that supposed to mean? Shouldn't it possibly read:
...speeds from mach 7-10+.
etc.
Speed in excess of a range doesn't make any sense, the smaller number is irrelevant.
//Blessed are they that run around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels.
I am _not_ going to defile my Mac with Real. Not for pr0n, not for science, not for anything.
Anyone have a link to a format that doesn't suck? Or do I have to bother booting a Windows box.
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
Boy, are you ever wrong. The press conference is at 4:00 PST (according to the splash screen on my TV). The flight was at 4:00 CST.
How do I know? I watched it.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
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.
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
Did you even read what he posted? Ramjet technology has been around for a while. This isn't new, it is not that impressive. Great that it can work, but it's nothing revolutionary.
//Blessed are they that run around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels.
Circumfrence of Earth / Mach 5
It would take about 6 and a half hours to get from here and back again.
So in "Hare We Go" when Bugs Bunny threw the baseball around the world to show Christopher Columbus that the world is round, he threw the ball at about Mach 785 or so. Somehow he managed to put enough spin on it that it orbited the planet, the natives applied the stickers, AND he caught the ball.
But can it run Doom III? Yeah, i didn't think so.
The "Insert Quote Here" line is almost as predictable as inserting an actual quote.
110mph in a Winnebago? That's ludicrous...
Wonder if NASA is using liquid schwartz in this thing.
Study everything, you'll find something you can use - Jason Bourne
You are wrong.
A supersonic combusting ramjet is way way way incredibly more technically challenging than a regular ramjet.
Managing the shock wave systems to provide adequate fuel mixing and ignition is only barely possible today with the biggest computer simulations on the planet.
I don't know what you consider "revolutionary", but sustained supersonic combustion is a Really Big Deal.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
if you missed it, BBC has a story and a video clip here
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
MPlayer seems to be able to handle the WMA stream just fine for me. But there's nothing going on right now; it just says that there's going to be a press briefing at 4:00 Pacific.
..would be mindbuggeringly fast. Imagine you're standing in the middle of the Bonneville Salt Flats on a day with perfect visibility in all directions:
The X-43A would cross from (visible) horizon to horizon in about 10 seconds.
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! ;)
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
..I've been round the globe once already and managed to post the same damn thing twice. Sorry.
Your ASF video feed runs anywhere from 8 to 30 frames per second (lets assume 30 fps, broadcast standard). Mach 7 is 2.382 km/s, and Mach 10 is 3.403 km/s (lets assume it's a marginally successful test at Mach 7). A little algebra and you've got 71.46 km per frame, or 44.4 miles per frame.
Where am I going with this? 44 miles per frame is a pretty good clip. It really makes me wonder (when you watch the clip) that any person could recognize enough land marks over the flight path for the images to have any impact, especially given how compressed the images would be. I just found that in the clear air of the midwest USA, the average visibility is 140 miles. So, in 3 frames (1/10 of a second), you've covered the farthest landscape a person would normally be familiar with.
Suppose you want a 2nd live feed... How are you going to transmit the data out of the plane? I'm pretty sure that nothing ground based can do it, so you need a satellite or something to receive the broadcast, but then you have to worry about targeting. With that much trouble, you might as well keep the recorded data on board and download it after the flight. In which case, you'd still only need one feed on the website.
There's an old Airforce saying: A new plane doesn't make a new engine possible, A new engine makes a new plane possible. That's why when NASA went for the moon a critical development was the F-1 first stage rocket engine. Capable of 1.5M lbs. of thrust it allowed the Saturn V first stage to be built with only 5 engines. Compare this with the Russian failed manned lunar rocket the Energia (I think) which had 20 engines. They never were able to work all together (vibrational problems) and abandoned it after several launch disasters. So why is NASA cancelling this program in particular? Are we (under Bush's program) sacrificing everything to plant a flag on Mars and not making space flight practical? It might be worth it if we ever got to Mars but it looks highly doubtful that his proposal is a serious attempt at anything but votes!
it's not. of course. phew.
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
"Also, why waste money sending two (one with a camera) when you're not even sure one would even be successful?"
Because if it works you can then take the video to Congress and say "Look! Shiney! Now gimme money!"
Yeah, it's Hyshot
However, let's not forget that Hyshot's flight path was toward earth. Also the scramjet worked in the last few seconds before it crashed into the earth. NASA's test was a horizontal flight high in the atmosphere.
This is the first time I've checked out NASA TV. I don't get it on cable, so I used their Windows Media feed. It's the best-looking streaming video I've seen yet! Decent resolution and a high frame rate, no tearing when people walk around.
:)
Unfortunately, I missed the launch and just caught the news conference afterward. Apparently, "nominal" roxors NASA hard.
-Rich
the press conference is on right now and they broke Mach 7, and climbed to over 95,000 feet.....
this is from prelim data, but i am sure NASA will release some factoids as soon as everything is verified.....
I stand corrected, thank you I counldn't remember the name!
"It can't be assault! I just touched him!" At Mach 2...
Seriously, we have how many tonnes of steel hitting the water at what speed?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
If you listen to the ABC news radio either streaming radio or on the old fashion light spectrum then tonight, Australian time, there will be a documentary about this.
Does it go on forever?
I have a poor-quality picture of the vehicle itself under thrust (after seperation) that I grabbed from NASA TV. I haven't seen it posted anywhere, but my server can't handle a slashdotting. Anymody who might be able to host it for me, drop me a note.
account name is xenon
and the domain is arcticus.com
-- There is no truth. There is only Perception. To Percieve is to Exist.
http://www.admiraltylawguide.com/documents/digestx iv.html
"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
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Literally
H TM L/EM-0015-06.html
overview quicktimes here:
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/Hyper-X/
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
It's not floating, it sank, and they didn't throw it overboard for purposes of lightening a ship.. they threw it out, with no intention of ever recovering it.
The vehicle used in Saturday's test will not be recovered from the ocean due to the high cost of such an effort. (Reuters)
Seems kinda strange, I wonder if they blew it up so that no one can salvage it even it did wash ashore. There are explosives onboard the vehicle... since they had to blow up the plane during the last test.
A lot of posts are commenting on how fast this is.
Speed is not the point of this experiment.. there have already been a number of aircraft faster than this, much faster.
The point is that, after boosting it to mach 5 with a conventional engine, it was set free for the scramjet to work, and it boosted it another mach or two.. meaning the scramjet worked.
Not having to carry liquid oxygen means you can now carry more fuel, cargo, whatever.
If there were only some way to work scramjets into the war on terrorism....
How about the idea that's been floating around of a hypersonic bomber capable of reaching any target in the world within two hours?
As reported in the mercury news story, With TWO POUNDS of gaseous hydrogen, it accelerated from 3,500 mph to to over 5,000 mph in TEN seconds!..... ZOUNDS!
So why is NASA cancelling this program in particular? Are we (under Bush's program) sacrificing everything to plant a flag on Mars and not making space flight practical?
;)
I'm not entirely clear what you were asking here, but I don't think a scramjet is going to help make space flight practical anyway. A scramjet still requires oxygen to burn its fuel, and there isn't much of that in space.
If you were referring to the cancellation of a different program, my apologies.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
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.
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
...how this guy feels right now! :)
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
3,500 to 5,000 mph -mach 7-in ten seconds with 2 pouds of fuel? I defy anybody not to be impressed by that perfomance and fuel economy!.... manned or unmanned-It will be perfectly feasable for a full size payload carrying vehicle using one of these types of engines to also carry along powerful H2 burning jet engines for takeoff and acceleration to high supersonic, and a linear aerospike rocket engine or two plus enough LOX for the short additional boost to orbit! only if they are all using the same fuel though.
Interesting in how they mentitoned we probably won't be seeing this in the civilian sector for some time because of size constriants (ie; more unstable the larger the craft is), but it has potential crusie missile applications and other military stuff.
Now reconissance I can see. A small mach 7 spy plane is going to be damn hard to hit. but cruise missile? That is one expensive shot. I mean, a tomahawk is something like $500,000 a piece, right? You gotta be having something awfully important to be hitting in a hurry to be shooting of an X-Missile. And what kind of warhead are you mounting on it to make it worth the while?? I guess for first strike shock value, they'll work. Instant retaliation. But damn, you'd better have a good reason....
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Imagine a conventional LOOKING rocket, with 3 or 4 scramjets in nacelles mounted around it's perimeter and a single rocket engine at its base. Boosted off the pad by solid rockets,(this is just for cargo, not humans) and accelerated to mach 3 at SRB burn out, the scramjets would then propel it to the upper atmosphere near orbital velocity where it would finally need its rocket engine and oxidizer to make orbit. I believe you could launch quite a heavy payload very efficiency with this configuration. Any real rocket scientists have a thought on this?
with a scramjet you no longer need several million lbs of liquid oxygen to lift comparatively light space cargo off the ground.
most rockets in work by combining oxygen and hydrogen and detonating them. To launch sizeable craft from the ground to orbit though, you need alot of oxygen - and its quite heavy. However, if you use normal turbofans to get into the air, then fire a smaller rocket to get you to scramjet speed, and then use the scramjet to ride your way to the top of the atmosphere (where you'll fire one last set of small rockets to propel yourself into orbit), you still have a substantial weight savings over lifting off from the ground with several million lbs of LOX.
This basically means you can lift more cargo into space easier, cheaper, and more frequently.
The only way for the 'space plane' to become a true economic reality is through scramjets.
-
couldn't have said this better myself! (could you confirm that since the atomic weight of hydrogen is 1 whereas the atomic weight of oxygen is 16, the ratio BY WEIGHT of hydrogen fuel to oxygen is 1:8 on a spacecraft since the reaction is H2+O -> H2O. Doesn't this mean that there will be a HUGE savings of weight or increase in payload since the scramjet gets the oxygen "for free"?)
did anyone manage to find any statistics anywhere about the average fuel consumption on that trip? It's probably not quite the first issue on most peoples' minds but it'd be interesting to know anyway.
Sigs for Nerds. Sigs that Matter.
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)
Kevin Horton
Don't pay too much attention to that Google conversion from Mach to speed. It only works if the temperature is 15 deg C (i.e. sea level under the International Standard Atmosphere). The speed of sound varies with the square root of the temperature, and it is a lot colder up where the X-43 was flying than it is at sea level, so the speed of sound is slower.
Mach 7 at sea level is about 8575 km/h, but Mach 7 at 100,000 ft it is only about 7615 km/h ( assuming the mythical day with standard temperature at both altitudes).
See Variation of speed of sound with altitude
Kevin Horton
without that captured Goa'uld Death Glider.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.