X-43A Mach 10 Mission Scrubbed For Today

An anonymous reader writes "NASA's third X-43A hypersonic research mission has been scrubbed for today due to technical glitches with X-43A instrumentation. When the issues were addressed, not enough time remained in the launch window."

99% success?

[dadjaka]

Is this like the space shuttle, where even if 99% of the components worked, the mission would still fail?

What 1% failed here?

Re:Some questions I have...

[rebelcool]

1. No kidding! Its a scramjet. Perhaps you should look up what that is and how it works.

2. Its a flying engine.

The point is to test the engine at a new, insanely fast speed to demonstrate that it can be done. It is not intended to have anything to do with passengers. Its so new, the engine has never been flown in the atmosphere at that speed.

Anything involving passengers is many years away.

Re:Some questions I have...

[KliX]

It's not 'cheating' - that type of propulsion/engine simply doesn't work until the craft's body is moving very fast indeed. Any craft wanting to use this type of engine, would require a booster before it could operate [using current technology, maybe at some point in the future, the scramjet could be hybridised with a jet within the same body, who knows].

As to the size, I assume that's because of problems with thermal dissipation - at that speed within the atmosphere, the body is going to get seriously hot. I don't think we have materials capable to handling the heat flux that'd flow through them [or of the strength required at those temperatures] for a large.. ship, but you've got to start somewhere :)

Hey, at least we know this type of engine works.

50 years down the line, this might be 75% of the form of all LEO launches.

Re:99% success?

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA Langley has a Mach 20 wind tunnel. I used to work in the transsonic facility there, and that tunnel is basically an integral part of the building. I also worked in another building right next to the scramjet testing facility. That used to shake books off the shelf when they fired it up

Re:Some questions I have...

[Rei]

> you need some kind of boost inbetween what a
> jet engine can do, and scramjet ignition

It's called a ramjet.

Of course, you can always go from zero to mach >5 in the barrel of a gigantic gun [astronautix.com]. ;) And before you say that it wouldn't work with a scramjet, you might want to think again [af.mil]

Also, when you said "a tin can", were you referring to a flameholder? Scramjets don't use flameholders; they either use hyperglolics (like silane) or just simple heat and pressure of high velocity compression for ignition (like a diesel engine). Flameholders (of which the can-type is no longer considered to be a very effective model) are generally only viable in subsonic flows.