NASA PREPS MACH 10 FLIGHT

“NASA will attempt to break the air­craft speed record next week by fly­ing a jet plane at 7,000 mph, or nearly 10 times the speed of sound,” Wired News says.
The unmanned flight will mark the third time NASA has tested its new supersonic-​​combustion ram­jet, or “scram­jet,” engine, which has no mov­ing parts and emits only water as exhaust. The first test, in 2001, had to be aborted when the rocket that boosts the small X-​​43A [exper­i­men­tal] air­craft to its fly­ing height spun out of con­trol over the Pacific Ocean. The sec­ond test, in March of this year, went more smoothly, with the plane reach­ing a record-​​breaking speed of 5,000 mph, or nearly seven times the speed of sound.
NASA hopes to set a new record with its third flight Monday, when it will try to push the X-​​43A air­craft to Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound. In con­trast, most com­mer­cial planes fly under Mach 1.
Speaking of super­sonic, here’s an arti­cle of mine from last year on the Pentagon’s push to build a Mach 4 mis­sile. And another one, on the last flight of the Concorde.

November 11th, 2004 | Planes, Copters, Blimps | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.