Hyper X

My thanks for the following article go to Scott C. of California for pointing me in the right direction ie: NASA where the information was obtained. I think you will agree that it makes interesting reading.
Looking at the artist's impression and configuration and performance, it bears a remarkable resemblence to information concerning "AURORA". I leave it to you to make up your own minds. I would like to point out one area; where it is stated that a budget of $170 million has been allocated for a 5 year plan of research and development. This seems to me to be a hell of a lot of money to build model aeroplanes, considering I could buy four of the latest F-15's (the real thing) for the same money. If I had to spend that kind of money down at my local model shop, needless to say they would never see me.
Considering that work started in 1996 I would not be surprised if a full scale aircraft had been built and tested by now. This could account for some of the unexplained sightings and sounds which have been reported many times by some kind of aircraft operating over the Western coast of California. - Food for thought eh! - Anyway I hope you find the article interesting, and once again my thanks to Scott.

Hyper-X or possible Aurora ?

Hypersonic Project

NASA has established a multi-year experimental hypersonic ground and flight test program called Hyper-X. The program seeks to demonstrate "air-breathing" engine technologies that promise to increase payload capacity or reduce vehicle size for the same payload for future hypersonic aircraft and/or reusable space launch vehicles.
Payload capacity will be increased by discarding the heavy oxygen tanks that rockets must carry and by using a propulsion system that uses the oxygen in the atmosphere as the vehicle flies at many times the speed of sound. Hydrogen will fuel the program's research vehicles, but it requires oxygen from the atmosphere to burn.

The Hyper-X Phase I is a NASA Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology Enterprise program being conducted jointly by the Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., and the Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif. Langley is the lead center and is responsible for hypersonic technology development. Dryden is responsible for flight research.

Langley & Dryden
-A Joint Effort-

Phase I is a five-year, approximately $170 million program to flight validate scramjet propulsion, hypersonic aerodynamics and design methods. As envisioned, Phase II would make use of the data, technologies and design methods derived from Phase I to design and build a larger, reusable hypersonicX-plane.

Research Flights from Mach 7-10

A team led by MicroCraft, Inc. has been selected to fabricate three unpiloted research aircraft in Phase I of the program that NASA will fly at up to 10 times the speed of sound, or approximately 7,200 mph at sea level.
Research began with conceptual design and wind tunnel work in early 1996. The three highly-swept aircraft will be identical in appearance but will be engineered with slight differences simulating engine inlet variable geometry which is generally a function of Mach number. Each vehicle will fly once, at one-year intervals, beginning in early 2000. The first and second flights will be at Mach 7, and the third at Mach 10.
At Mach 10--or 10 times the speed of sound--the 12-foot-long, 5-foot-wide aircraft will be traveling at about two miles per second (approximately 7,200 miles per hour at sea level). Speeds over Mach 5 are defined as "hypersonic."
Hyper-X will ride on a booster rocket built by the Orbital Sciences Corp., which will be launched by the Dryden B-52 from an altitude of 19,000 to 43,000 feet, depending upon the mission. For each flight, the booster will accelerate the Hyper-X research vehicle to the test conditions (Mach 7 or 10) at approximately 100,000 feet, where it will separate from the booster and fly under its own power and preprogrammed control.
The Hyper-X research vehicle will be separated from the booster rocket by two small pistons. Shortly after separation, the Hyper-X scramjet engine will operate for seven-plus seconds to demonstrate forward thrust in flight. When the scramjet engine test is complete, the vehicle will go into a high-speed glide to collect up to six minutes of hypersonic aero dynamic data while flying to a mission completion point. The flight tests will be conducted within the Western Test Range off the coast of California.

Each of the Hyper-X research vehicles will achieve test speed and altitude with the help of theNASA Dryden B-52 aircraft and an expendable booster rocket, as shown in this simplified flight trajectory.

Vehicle and engine ground tests and analyses will be performed prior to each flight in order to compare flight and ground test results. Before the first flight, a spare flight engine will be mounted on a wind tunnel model that accurately represents the size and shape of the full-scale vehicle. The model will be tested in Langley's 8-Foot High Temperature Wind Tunnel to simulate a fully operating ramjet/scramjet propulsion system at Mach 7 flight conditions.
Vehicle and engine ground tests and analyses will be performed prior to each flight in order to compare flight and ground test results. Before the first flight, a spare flight engine will be mounted on a wind tunnel model that accurately represents the size and shape of the full-scale vehicle. The model will be tested in Langley's 8-Foot High Temperature Wind Tunnel to simulate a fully operating ramjet/scramjet propulsion system at Mach 7 flight conditions.

First Scram Jet Top Goal

This challenging ground and flight research program will significantly expand the boundaries of air-breathing flight by being the first to fly a "scramjet" powered aircraft at hypersonic speeds.
Demonstrating the airframe-integrated ramjet/ scramjet engine tops the list of program technology goals, followed by development of hypersonic aerodynamics and validation of design tools and methods for air-breathing hypersonic vehicles.
A ramjet operates by subsonic combustion of fuel in a stream of air compressed by the forward speed of the aircraft itself, as opposed to a normal jet engine, in which the compressor section (the fan blades) compresses the air. Ramjets operate from about Mach 2 to Mach 5.
A scramjet (supersonic-combustion ramjet) is a ramjet engine in which the airflow through the whole engine remains supersonic. Scramjet technology is challenging because only limited testing can be performed in ground facilities. Hyper-X will build knowledge, confidence and a technology bridge to very high Mach number flight.
Currently, the world's fastest air-breathing aircraft, the SR-71, cruises slightly above Mach 3. The highest speed attained by NASA's rocket-powered X-15 was Mach 6.7. The Hyper-X aircraft will fly faster than any previous air-breathing aircraft.

NASA's X-15 Test Bed launching from a
B-52

Hyper X Patch

Glossary of Terms

1.-aerothermal performance: Aerodynamic performance when velocities are high enough for aerodynamic heating to become important.
2.-air-breathing: An aaircraft propulsion system which sustains combustion of fuel with atmospheric oxygen.

3.-airframe: Assembled structure of aircraft, together with system components forming integral part of structure and influencing strength, integrity or shape.
4.-airframe-engine integration: The structural and aerodynamic mating of an aircraft's airframe with its engine or propulsion system. In the case of hypersonic scramjet propulsion system concepts, the engine is typically mounted flush to the underside of the airframe in a highly-integrated fashion. The underside of the airframe's forebody is shaped to help prepare the flow of air into the engine inlet, while the underside of the airframe's aft section is shaped for optimum exhaust flow.
5.-highly-swept: A swept wing is one in which the leading edge has an obvious backwards inclination from the root (where wing meets fuselage) to wing tip.
6.-hypersonic: Operation at Mach number exceeding 5.Mach number, M. Ratio of true airspeed to speed of sound in surrounding fluid (which varies as square root of absolute temperature). Mach 1 equals the speed of sound, which is 340.294 meters per second or 761.59 mph at sea level (using the 1962 U.S. Standard Atmosphere).
7.-propulsion system: Sum of all components which are required to propel vehicle, eg. engine, accessories and engine-control system, fuel system, inlet and cooling systems.ram compression. See ramjet.
8.-ramjet: Air-breathing jet engine similar to a turbojet but without mechanical compressor or turbine; compression is accomplished entirely by ram and is thus sensitive to vehicle forward speed and non-existent at rest.scramjet.
9.-Supersonic combustion ramjet: One in which the flow through the combustor itself is still supersonic.speed of sound. See Mach number.
10.-trajectory: Flight path in 3-D of any object, eg. aeroplane or electron or other particle, with exception of orbits and other closed paths. Can be ballistic, acted on only by atmospheric drag and gravity, or controlled by various external forces.
11.-vehicle configuration: Gross spatial arrangement of major elements, i.e., disposition of wings, bodies, engines and control surfaces.
12.-wind tunnel: A tunnel-like structure through which air is forced at known and controllable velocities to determine the effects of wind pressure on objects held stationary in the airstream

Latest on Hypersoar

The HyperSoar is a B-52 sized hypersonic bomber/recon aircraft concept under investigation by US DoE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and University of Maryland. If developed, it would have the capability to take-off from the US and deliver its goods anywhere in the world in a couple of hours without refueling. It's speed(Mach 10) and altitude will make it near impossible to track it, much less bring it down. It's chief designer is Preston Carter

Hypersoar will fly only at 'the edge of space' - 60 km - however, it needs technology that will more than just distinguish it from 'conventional' airplanes.

The HyperSoar escapes heat build-up on the airframe by skipping along the edge of Earth's atmosphere - much like a rock skipped across water. A HyperSoar aircraft would ascend to power outside the Earth's atmosphere - then turn off its engines and coast back to the surface of the atmosphere. There, it would again fire its air-breathing engines and skip back into space. The craft would repeat this process until it reached its destination. A flight from US to Japan will take 25 such skips.

The skips will be angled at only 5 degrees. The passengers will feel a force of 1.5 Gs which what you would experience on a child's swing. The plane will powerup to 39 kms, from where it will coast to double that altitude, before it starts to descend. Each skip will be 450 kms long.

All previous concepts have suffered from heat buildup on the surface of the aircraft and in various aircraft components due to friction with the atmosphere. A HyperSoar plane would experience less heating because it would spend much of its flight out of the Earth's atmosphere. Also, any heat the craft picked up while "skipping" down into the atmosphere could be at least partially dissipated during the aircraft's time in space(it is cold out there).

HyperSoar has a promised fuel efficiency comparable to today's commercial aeroplanes. However, possible adverse environmental effects from emissions or sonic booms have not been looked into, which have plagued attempts to develop slower, supersonic transport planes.

Applications

Business jet
Military use
Hi speed cargo plane
A booster for a TSTO space launch system

Propulsion

The core of hypersoar is the engine - especially since it is a waverider design i.e. the whole body is integrated with the engine so that the whole plane can 'ride' the shock wave. This being the reason why all hypersonic concepts, including X-43, X-30 look so similar.

Ofcourse, air breathing engines at that height have to be SCRAMJETS or something similar. These are currently being developed in the X-43 Hyper-X program.

Stats

Length :	25 m
Propulsion :	Air Breathing Rockets
Max. Speed :	Mach 10
Ceiling :	60 km

Hypersoar and B3

Is Hyper-Soar US' next strategic bomber? Probably not. Infact, B-3 will not even be supersonic. The B3 bomber is a subsonic extension of the existing B-2 Spirit flying wing. US Air Combat Command initiated the Future Stirke Aircraft or FSA study with the nation's three prime contractors for airframes - Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to look ahead and develop concpts for the heavy bomber. Couple of years ago, Nothrop Grumman came out with 2 different design studies. One hypersonic waverider, another a Mach 2 supercruiser. The third design was not revealed.

Spacecraft Tech	:	Hypersonic Flight and Scramjets
Spacecraft Tech	:	HTOL TSTO
Spacecraft Tech	:	X-43 Hyper-X
Spacecraft	:	AVATAR
Spacecraft	:	Tu-2000
Spacecraft	:	MiG-2000