Has anyone heard of

[belovelife]

the x 43a

scramjet intake

 

let me know

[belovelife]

i know this may be off topic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbiter_(sim)

but it may relate

[belovelife]

again although off topic

Viewing the Sky - Google Earth User Guide

this is cool, its a map to the stars using goole earth

[Mercedes Benzene]

The X-43-A was the first design of the X-43 unmanned aircraft.

It's NASA's project to create a hypersonic aircraft design, and it utilizes a scramjet, which is an engine in which combustion occurs under supersonic speeds.

[belovelife]

were you aware that is is capable of achieving LEO

[Mercedes Benzene]

were you aware that is is capable of achieving LEO

 

I'm not surprised, considering that the goal is to get a manned crew to orbit in the future using this technology, and the data gained from this research.:hyper:

[belovelife]

now if you notice, in the orbiter simulator

there is a craft very similar to the x43a

the star charts help in relative positioning

now all together it makes for a personal space flight vehicle

(future tense of course)

what i am curious about is, say the whole thing is computer controlled

what would be the process for getting a license

to get one of these things

[CraigD]

I’m a aerospace vehicle enthusiast, so followed the X-43A pretty closely during its development and 2001-2004 test flights.

 

The X-43A is a small (about 3.7 m long), unmanned aircraft intended only to test its scramjet engine. Later X-43s were to be larger and possibly manned, but the program’s been canceled, and is likely to stay that way, or at best remain restricted to small test models. The X-51, a larger (about 7.9 m), unmanned scramjet. is expected to fly this year.

 

Though scramjets have been successfully flown only for about 5 years, scramjets have been a staple of hard SF for decades. There was even serious design consideration in the 1970s and 80s of making the Space Shuttle a scramjet/rocket hybrid. :D :)

were you aware that is is capable of achieving LEO

No way!

 

The X-43A is the fastest aircraft that’s ever flown. Its top speed was about 3370 m/s at an altitude of about 29000 m (Mach 9.8). Orbital transfer speed from that altitude, however, is about 7940 m/s (the orbital speed of that altitude, 7887 m/s + the delta V or a transfer orbit to 200000 m, 52 m/s). Even assuming a due east course at the equator, which adds about 466 m/s, the X-43A is only about half as fast as it would need to be to reach LEO.

 

Any vehicle achieving an 200,000 m altitude orbit must have a “kick” rocket or other vacuum-capable motor capable of about 50 m/s delta V to nearly circularize its orbit at max altitude, a pretty routine and easy engineering feat.

 

Note that, assuming it could sustain 3370 m/s in a vertical climb to the edge of the atmosphere (around 100,000 m), the X-43A would be capable of a suborbital “zoom” climb to well above LEO, to about 674,000 m. Though high, this isn’t unusual performance for a small high-altitude plane launched vehicle – the USAF’s ASM-135 anti-satellite missile, designed to be launched from F-15 fighter jets (deployed 1986, canceled 1988) could hit an altitude of about 563000 m.

 

I believe belovelife is confusing the X-43A with some recent designs that call for a scramjet as the lower stage of aircraft launched 2-stage to orbit vehicles, or perhaps some older designs for single stage scramjet/rocket (and in some cases, fanjet/scramjet/rocket) hybrids. The upper stage or motor mode in these designs is a rocket, as is the case with every spacecraft that’s yet been orbited.

 

Aerospace designers seem to have become skeptical that even a scramjet (with, as mentioned above, a small kick rocket) could be made fast enough to reach LEO. I’m skeptical too – given how difficult it is to make an aircraft that can survive brief flights of about mach 9, a mach 20 aircraft seems impossibly difficult with current technology. I’m optimistic, however, that single-stage, fully reusable space airplanes with both scramjets and rockets (possibly operating a single motor in two different modes) may be possible in the near future.

[max4236]

I was just going to take one of these puppies for a spin. I think I'll take it up to about 55000m, fly level with the scram jet on full throttle till the speed maxes out and then barrel up at a 45 to 50 degree ascent. At about 135000m I'll click on the rcs and level out with the horizon, then fire up the deurterium powered ion thrusters. Should accelerate pretty fast without any air in the way. Not sure where I'll go from there yet, maybe the ISS. Wish me luck. :)

 

eta: Hmm the air is too thin above 40,000m for the scram jet to function. That was trippy. There must be a glitch. I was just about to Mach 8, the nose was glowing a light orange, and then it's like the ship hit a lighting bolt or some sort of spacial anomaly. The next thing I know I'm spinning out of control, way out 3,000,000m above the Earth, clocking about 2,500km/s right into deep space. I can see the planet visibly shinking and drifting away from me. I think that's Earth? Yikes.. How do I get back home?

[belovelife]

NASA - GRC Ion Propulsion

 

100,000 V

[belovelife]

10million Newton-sec. total impulse

wow.

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/ion/docs/NEXT%20nr.doc

[jab2]

I’m a aerospace vehicle enthusiast,

Slightly OT, but since the OP asked about intakes, I think my question has slight relevance.

 

I'm a great enthusiast of the SR-71/Oxcart program and have on more than one occasion read that at normal cruise speed more than, I think it's about 70%, of the thrust is generated by the intake cone of the engine. There has been some declassification of data and documents on the program the last couple of years, but I still fail to find any explanation of this intake cone statement, thus am at a loss to understand how it is possible.

 

So Craig can you explain, or better have links to some info?

[CraigD]

I'm a great enthusiast of the SR-71/Oxcart program and have on more than one occasion read that at normal cruise speed more than, I think it's about 70%, of the thrust is generated by the intake cone of the engine.

What that statement actually means is that, at the SR-71’s design cruise speed of about mach 3.1, about 70% of its thrust is produced by afterburner combustion of fuel using air diverted around its J58 engines’ compressor sections. Another way of putting this would be to say that at mach 31., the SR-71 is about 70% a ramjet.

 

Since, along with its controllable bleed ducts, its movable intake spike is key to controlling how much air is diverted around the compressor section, it’s reasonable to say that 70% of its thrust is generated by the spike, though technically, the spike is source of drag, not thrust.

 

The primary purpose of the spike is to slow air to subsonic speed before it enters the compressor and compressor bypass. Note that even the bypass air in the J58 is subsonic – if it weren’t, it would technically be a scramjet, like the X-43’s.

 

The control system for all this is amazingly complicated, using a custom-built analog computer. All this was designed and built, in a hurry, from 1957 to 1963!

 

The J58 is IMHO better shown in pictures than described in words. From the linked wikipedia article:

[jab2]

Thanks Craig. Been to the wiki page but cannot remember seeing that diagram, even though it was added Feb 07 already.

 

Make fully sense now. I'm just wondering why they did not just say that the bypass air in AB mode produces the thrust. Maybe to confuse the former USSR spies, but then looking at the Manhattan project their best spies were inside the project so accurate data would have been in Moscow 2 weeks after design.:confused:

 

Do you have any book recommendations on the SR71? I have two of the earlier works (can't remember names now) but that was written before the planes were withdrawn from service and classified data was released. Amazon about 4 months ago recommended a book written by a former pilot to me, but I'm more interested in the systems than flying experiences over Russian.

[CraigD]

Do you have any book recommendations on the SR71? I have two of the earlier works (can't remember names now) but that was written before the planes were withdrawn from service and classified data was released. Amazon about 4 months ago recommended a book written by a former pilot to me, but I'm more interested in the systems than flying experiences over Russian.

I’ve never read anything longer than an article on the SR-71, often in a story about the U-2, Lockheed’s Skunk Works and Kelly Johnson, or a couple of chapters in a book about the history of Lockheed, all work more focused on the human history around these aircraft than their engineering.

 

Unfortunately, I think, despite being subject to state secrecy, the engineering of the SR-71’s Blackbird family of airplanes is likely to remain and even become more mysterious. Its actual manufacturing tools were intentionally destroyed in the late 1960s, and few people with knowledge of its design and building remain alive. With increasingly thorough and side-looking capable satellite reconnaissance, and a lack of military parity between the US and the former USSR, need for Mach 3+ reconnaissance planes, high-speed interceptors, super-fast transports, suborbital transports, etc, is at or near an all-time low. It’s fortunate, I think, that enough interest in scramjets remains to support even the current scaled-back X-43 program, and surprising, given diminishing interest in reusable launch vehicles, which it the main role an eventual X-43 program aircraft is envisioned to fill.

 

It’s rather a rough, or at lease an unglamorous time to be an aerospace engineer, I think. :)

 

I wonder, what sort of strategic direction might improve things?

[gregdevid]

hi,

X-43A rode on the first stage of an Orbital Sciences Corp. booster rocket on March 27, 2004. It was launched by NASA Dryden's B-52 at about 40,000 feet.