Mission Aiming At Mach 10 Scrubbed

NASA's experimental scramjet, the X-43A, was supposed have made an attempt at Mach 10 flight Monday. The X-43A research mission intended to reach Mach 10 today was postponed, and may be rescheduled for the same time Tuesday.

An instrumentation system problem with the X-43 caused a delay until it was fixed. When the preflight checklist was resumed, not enough time remained to meet an FAA launch deadline of 1600 PST.

The X-43A team is meeting to assess the ability to launch.

NASA says, if the mission can be flown on Tuesday, the launch window would remain from 1400 to 1600 Pacific time, with takeoff of the B-52B mothership that carries the X-43A /Pegasus booster to launch altitude slated for 1300.

The mission is intended to flight-validate the operation of the X-43A's supersonic-combustion ramjet - or scramjet - engine at a record airspeed of almost 10 times the speed of sound, or about 7,000 mph.

The flight is part of the Hyper-X program, a research effort designed to demonstrate air-breathing propulsion technologies for access to space and high-speed flight within the atmosphere. It will provide unique in-flight data on hypersonic air-breathing engine technologies that have large potential pay-offs.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/missions/research/x43-main.html