US hypersonic vehicle fails test
17 Aug 2012 7:49 AM IST
An unmanned US military jet designed to fly at hypersonic speeds and travel from London to New York in just 45 minutes has failed during a trial as it crashed into the Pacific Ocean within seconds of its launch.
The test had called for a five-minute flight off the coast of southern California at Mach 6- up to 7,300 kilometres per hour – six times the speed of sound.
The X-51A Waverider was dropped from a B-52 bomber on Wednesday and was launched by a rocket booster as planned but the flight was over in seconds after a control fin malfunctioned, the US Air Force said in a statement.
The faulty control fin meant that the vehicle’s flight ended before a specially-designed ‘Scramjet’ engine could be ignited, it said.
‘It is unfortunate that a problem with this subsystem caused a termination before we could light the Scramjet engine,’ said Charlie Brink, Programme Manager for the project.
The test had called for a five-minute flight off the coast of southern California at Mach 6- up to 7,300 kilometres per hour – six times the speed of sound.
The X-51A Waverider was dropped from a B-52 bomber on Wednesday and was launched by a rocket booster as planned but the flight was over in seconds after a control fin malfunctioned, the US Air Force said in a statement.
The faulty control fin meant that the vehicle’s flight ended before a specially-designed ‘Scramjet’ engine could be ignited, it said.
‘It is unfortunate that a problem with this subsystem caused a termination before we could light the Scramjet engine,’ said Charlie Brink, Programme Manager for the project.
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