Monday, November 15, 2004
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NASA Delays Flight of X-43A Scramjet
18 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES - NASA (news - web sites) delayed Monday's planned flight of its experimental X-43A scramjet, an unmanned aircraft designed to reach a record speed of Mach 10, or 7,000 mph.
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Mission officials planned to try again for launch between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. PST Tuesday off the California coast.
The X-43A is mounted on a modified Pegasus rocket designed to be carried aloft by a B-52 aircraft and released at 40,000 feet. The rocket will carry the X-43A to 110,000 feet and separate, allowing the craft to fly for about 10 seconds with its supersonic combustion ramjet operating.
Troubleshooting an avionics problem left too little time for the B-52 to take off from Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert and reach the launch area before Monday's window closed.
"Ultimately we were go for launch but we had used up so much of that launch window that by the time we taxi and take off we would not be out on the launch box and in position to launch by 4 p.m.," said Griff Corpening, chief engineer on two previous X-43A flights.
The first X-43A flight failed in 2001 when the booster rocket veered off course and had to be destroyed. The second X-43A flew in March and reached Mach 6.83, or nearly 5,000 mph, a record for an aircraft powered by an air-breathing engine.
The X-43As were designed to land in the ocean and sink without being recovered.
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