Jan 5, 2024 · The eight-year, approximately $230 million NASA Hyper-X program was a high-risk, high-payoff research program. It undertook challenges never before attempted. No vehicle powered by an air-breathing engine had ever flown at hypersonic speeds before the successful March 2004 flight.

The NASA X-43 was an experimental unmanned hypersonic aircraft with multiple planned scale variations meant to test various aspects of hypersonic flight. It was part of the X-plane series and specifically of NASA's Hyper-X program developed in the late 1990s. [1] It set several airspeed records for jet aircraft.

Aug 23, 2023 · Hitching a ride on the same B-52 mother ship that once launched X-15 research aircraft in the 1960s, NASA's X-43A... The small size of the X-43A scramjet is evident in this nose-on view while mounted to its modified Pegasus booster...

Sep 6, 2013 · This paper provides an overview of NASA's Hyper-X Program; a focused hypersonic technology effort designed to move hypersonic, airbreathing vehicle technology from the laboratory environment to the flight environment.

About 500 sensors transmitted temperature, pressure, strain, and other readings back to NASA, providing hundreds of times more information than the most elaborate wind tunnel test ever could.

•Uses our high fidelity analysis tools: NASTRAN and HyperX with simpler models and loads •Application to aircraft, rockets, landers, and components like wings and tanks •Allows for structural design insight and input in a system before detailed aero, thermal, propulsion, and trajectory analyses are available

THERMAL & FLUIDS ANALYSIS REQUIRED FOR ALL! GOALS: Demonstrate, validate and advance the technology, experimental techniques, and computational methods and tools for design and performance predictions of a hypersonic aircraft powered with an airframe-integrated, scramjet engine. Scale!

Feb 6, 2002 · Hyper-X, the flight vehicle for which is designated as X-43A, is an experimental flight-research program seeking to demonstrate airframe-integrated, "air-breathing" engine technologies that promise to increase payload capacity for future vehicles, including hypersonic aircraft (faster than Mach 5) and reusable space launchers.

Mar 7, 2016 · Four decades of supersonic-combustion ramjet propulsion research culminated in a successful flight of the X-43A hypersonic technology demonstrator in March 2004, the first time a scramjet-powered aircraft had flown freely.

Jul 30, 2004 · It was launched by NASA Dryden's B-52 at about 40,000 feet. The booster accelerated the Hyper-X research vehicle to the test conditions (Mach 7 or 10) at approximately 100,000 feet, where it separated from the booster and flew under its own power.