Scramjet:
8000km/h Flight a Success
MATT WILLIAMS / The Advertiser (Australia) 31mar2006
THE dream of two-hour passenger flights between Australia and the UK is a step closer to reality.
Scientists in the state's Far North yesterday dubbed the lift-off and 8000km/h flight of Hyshot IV as a success.
The scramjet engine flew for 10 minutes to an altitude of 300km before crashing into the ground - 400km from the take-off point at the Woomera rocket range.
Data from the flight will be analysed by the University of Queensland researchers over the next two months.
University associate professor Michael Smart said the data would enable researchers to see if scramjet technology could be used for supersonic commercial flights.
Dr Smart said the engine would cut flying times between London and Sydney to between two and three hours.
"In 10 years, we might start to see scramjet-engine flights transporting goods, such as medical supplies," he said.
"I think once people see that, the possibility of using the scramjet for commercial flights will become very real.
"It wouldn't be cheap to start such a service, and it would need someone like Richard Branson to help fund it."
The payload from the flight is expected to be found today.
A team of 10 scientists from the university has been in Woomera for the past three weeks organising two scramjet flights - the first of which was last Saturday.
The flights cost $1.5-$2 million each and were funded by the university, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and UK company QinetiQ.
Another four scramjet tests have been planned for Woomera over the next two years. The first were in 2001 and 2002.
source: http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,18658138%255E2682,00.html 30mar2006
Hyshot III - QinetiQ returns to Woomera for scramjet flight test
PRESS RELEASE / QinetiQ 25mar2006
A £1m million QinetiQ scramjet experiment was successfully launched today, March 25, 2006, at Woomera, 500km north of Adelaide, South Australia at approximately 1.45pm local time (03:15 GMT).
A University of Queensland-led project, named HyShotTM III, successfully launched QinetiQ's scramjet engine which was attached to a Terrier-Orion rocket.
It is hoped that scramjet will have attained an estimated Mach 8 (or about 8000km/hr) flight speed as it fell back to Earth. The rocket and the scramjet were taken up to an altitude of 314km during a 10-minute flight.
The complex mission involves launching the scramjet to a certain altitude before it is then re-oriented to point backwards to the Earth. The scramjet experiment was set to take place in a tiny six-second window shortly before impact.
An international team of researchers is presently analysing data from the experiment.
QinetiQ researcher Rachel Owen said that it looked like everything had gone according to plan that the vehicle had followed a "nominal trajectory" and landed 400km down the range. She said the launch had been very exciting and she was very proud to see the scramjet fly.
The scramjet engine, which has been developed by defence and security company QinetiQ on behalf of the UK MoD, will spearhead the first of three international collaborative flights to launch in Australia this year.
The experimental flights are designed to further scramjet technology. Scramjets are supersonic combustion ramjets, which use oxygen from the atmosphere rather than carrying oxygen supplies like rockets, and are designed to fly at hypersonic speeds which is greater than five times the speed of sound.
They are set to revolutionise the launch of small space payloads, such as mini or micro low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites, by substantially lowering costs. LEO satellites are used in a variety of applications including earth observation, however the cost of launching them is tremendous and the advancement in scramjet technology could lower the costs significantly.
Scramjets could conceivably be used as part of a multi-stage launch vehicle that would involve a number of propulsion mechanisms to enable the vehicle to exit the earth's atmosphere. This type of launch vehicle would substantially lower costs through reducing the quantity of fuel carried because the amount of oxygen needed to be carried, compared to a conventional rocket, would be significantly lower.
The HyshotTM III experiment is designed to determine whether the efficient air inlet will enable the combustion chambers to auto-ignite. Managed under the umbrella of the HyshotTM international programme led by the University of Queensland (UQ), the QinetiQ project aims to provide low cost in-flight experiments, enabling the validation of ground test facilities and thus furthering scramjet technology.
The UK MoD funded QinetiQ scramjet engine has been put through an extensive ground test programme in Brisbane at UQ as well as Farnborough, QinetiQ's headquarters.
source: http://www.qinetiq.com/home/newsroom/news_releases_homepage/2006/1st_quarter/scramjet.html 30mar2006
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