Future shots
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| Quick time ... HyShot program leader, Associate Professor Michael Smart |
A scramjet experiment involving The University of Queensland as a collaborative partner was safely launched at the Woomera Test Facility, 500km north of Adelaide, in June this year.
Scramjets are air-breathing supersonic combustion ramjet engines that could make possible two-hour flights from Sydney to London.
The goal was to achieve Mach 10, or about 11,000km/hour in the Hypersonics Collaborative Australian/US experiment (HyCAUSE).
Researchers are awaiting confirmation of telemetry data from the launch, a collaborative effort between the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, also representing the research collaborators in the Australian Hypersonics Initiative.
A Talos-Castor rocket combination propelled the HyCAUSE engine to a height of about 450km, with the first stage Talos dropping off after six seconds, and the second-stage Castor taking the scramjet engine to an experiment in the final seconds of the flight.
The speed achieved will be known in the near future when telemetry data is received.
“This test has obtained the first-ever flight data on the inward-turning scramjet engine design,” said DARPA’S Dr Steven Walker.
