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posted by martyb on Friday June 05 2015, @05:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the Los-Angeles-to-Boston-in-less-than-an-hour dept.

In May of 2013, the Air Force successfully tested the X-51 WaveRider — an uncrewed, hypersonic "scramjet" capable of reaching Mach 5.1, or more than five times the speed of sound — by flying it at hypersonic speeds over the Pacific Ocean. Now, the Air Force is looking ahead to its next aircraft.

Air Force Chief Scientist Mica Endsley told Military.com this week that the agency is working on the next generation of its hypersonic vehicle. While the X-51 was a test designed to show that a scramjet craft was feasible, the Air Force now wants a vehicle that can "operate at the kind of temperatures you have when you are going at hypersonic speeds," and plans on building a guidance system that can also work at extreme speeds. The goal is to produce the new craft by 2023.

That is, of course, a long while away, and the US military has had some trouble with hypersonic defense technology. The X-51 was only successful after a string of high-profile failures, and last year, a hypersonic missile being tested by Department of Defense exploded during takeoff.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/2/8708255/x-51-waverider-mach-5-2023


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @09:11AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @09:11AM (#192430)

    All true for ICBMs, but I'd imagine that a guided surface to air missile like the R-300/SA-10 Grumble would need to have quite a bit of manoeuvrability, as it's radar guided. Of course, a missile like that won't fly for too long: at a maximum range of 150 km it will fly for less than a minute before it either runs out of fuel or hits its target, so you don't need materials that can survive for a long time at the high temperatures such speeds produce. It really ought to hit its target long before that becomes an issue.

    Which brings us back to the question of why such an aircraft. Obviously it's not for firing hypersonic missiles as the GP asserted: we've had those things since the at least the late sixties.