It will be 10 times the speed of sound at the altitude the craft will be flying.
You can't take the sea level speed of mach and multiply it by 10, because that would be incorrect. The speed of sound is about 760 mph at sea level, while at 95,000 feet (where the HyperX flies), the speed of sound is about 677 mph.
So when it flies Mach 10 it is not going 7,600 mph, it is going 6770 mph.
This is a common mistake that I see being made. Same thing with the SR-71...it is often quoted by dumb journalists as going 2280 mph, which is Mach 3 at speed level. But it can't go Mach 3 at speed level, it would break apart. It goes Mach 3 at 85,000 feet, which is about 1992 mph.
There's a cool utility for calculating Mach here: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/sound.ht ml
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It will be 10 times the speed of sound at the altitude the craft will be flying.
t ml
You can't take the sea level speed of mach and multiply it by 10, because that would be incorrect. The speed of sound is about 760 mph at sea level, while at 95,000 feet (where the HyperX flies), the speed of sound is about 677 mph.
So when it flies Mach 10 it is not going 7,600 mph, it is going 6770 mph.
This is a common mistake that I see being made. Same thing with the SR-71...it is often quoted by dumb journalists as going 2280 mph, which is Mach 3 at speed level. But it can't go Mach 3 at speed level, it would break apart. It goes Mach 3 at 85,000 feet, which is about 1992 mph.
There's a cool utility for calculating Mach here: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/sound.h