| The Truth Hurts |
03-27-2004 02:57 PM |
Mission: X-43A
Flight Date: Saturday, March 27, 2004
Take Off Time: 12:00 p.m. PST
Release Time: 1:00 p.m. PST
Location: NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center
The unpiloted 12-foot-long X-43A vehicle, part aircraft and part spacecraft, will be dropped from the wing of a B-52 aircraft, lofted to nearly 100,000 feet by a booster rocket and released over the Pacific Ocean to briefly fly under its own power at seven times the speed of sound (almost 5,000 mph).
The flight is part of the Hyper-X program, a research effort designed to demonstrate alternate propulsion technologies for access to space and high-speed flight within the atmosphere.
Hyper-X is inherently a high-risk program. No vehicle has ever flown at hypersonic speeds powered by an air-breathing scramjet engine. In addition, the rocket boost and subsequent separation from the rocket to get to the scramjet test condition have complex elements that must work properly for the mission to be successful.
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