The University of Queensland is working towards the second flight in the international HyShot program to proceed at Woomera, possibly in late July or early August.
HyShot team leader Dr Allan Paull of UQ`s Centre for Hypersonics said the team was awaiting confirmation whether the Defence Department`s Aircraft Research and Development Unit had been tasked to work with UQ on the second flight.
HyShot aims to provide the world`s first in-flight tests of scramjet technology, validating experiments held in ground test facilities. Scramjets are air breathing supersonic combustion ramjet engines which could revolutionise the launch of small space payloads such as communication satellites by substantial lowering costs.
Both NASA and the HyShot group staged scramjet experiments last year which did not reach all their objectives. Last October a flight anomaly caused the scramjet and second stage Orion booster disappeared into the desert north of Woomera.
In February this year, the HyShot team searched again for the missing debris, with the support of the University and DCSW (Defence Corporate Support Woomera). The debris was located by kangaroo aerial surveyor Professor Gordon Grigg and his team from UQ`s School of Life Sciences.
Dr Paull said a number of issues were still to be resolved before this year`s HyShot launch. They included getting the key players in the right place at the right time, and scheduling issues, as the Woomera range was heavily booked this year.
"Our payload is ready to go, we are at an advanced checking stage for our software, and our instrumentation checking is almost complete," he said.
"We are making some small modifications to the payload to ensure even weight distribution as well as achieve the final critical weight as a couple of hundred grams makes all the difference."
Dr Allan Paull`s brother, Dr Ross Paull, has written a new flight simulation computer program for the project, one of the last steps. The final shaker tests of the scramjet were successfully completed at BAe Systems in South Australia on April 24.
The UQ team has received the investigators` report into the first flight, which paves the way for the second flight and also has allowed the release of debris, most of which is firmly back at UQ. A PhD student from HyShot partner Seoul National University, Mr Suhee Won has joined the project.
Dr Allan Paull said researchers at UQ`s Centre for Hypersonics and Astrotech Space Operations, the launch providers, had completed an extra analysis of the first flight and as far as American authorities were concerned, the second flight had been cleared to go. A number of corrective actions had been undertaken. Recently, the Defence Science and Technology Organisation had confirmed telemetry support was in place for the next flight.
Media: Further information, Dr Allan Paull, telephone 07 3365 3783, HyShot International Program coordinator Dr Susan Anderson telephone 0402 091365 or Jan King at UQ Communications 0413 601 248.
