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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.
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.
...when it gets down to fundamentals, do what you have to do and shed no tears. Dr. Matson in Tunnel in the Sky
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
There is audio but is running several seconds behind the video feed for some reason.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
and destroy it again because they forgot something
good idea
And, no, I should not have used the goddamn Preview mode first.
> I don't suppose they'll archive it?
>
> That would be nice.
My guess is that would depend on how well the test goes. =P
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.
I'm just trying to make out in the video feed the guy sitting on the back of the scram jet waving his cowboy hat. =P
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
And probably irrelevent, since there's no funding for future tests.
Even if its moving at mach 7...we can still slashdot it!
Regards
elFarto
...and they can't show a readable countdown timer on the screen.
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
"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.
Looks like it topped out just over Mach 5. Not too damn bad.
I'll be really impressed when it goes to 11.
it all uses the same bandwidth pool right?
mach 5 = 3,806.03525 mph
mach 5 = 6,125.22 km/h
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?
Thats one fast RV. I thought 110mph in a Winnebago was fast, but this beats that hand down.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but 3 lefts do - Lew of GO magazine
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?
I'm actually watching the windows media stream live in totem as we speak, works like a charm without the real player linux vulnerabilities...
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.
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.
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.
They did it!7 5561. stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/35
Sky News
BBC
Well yeah, but that's with overclocking.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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!
"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)
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?
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.
-
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.
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
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.
-
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