Michael Braukus
Headquarters, Washington, DC                  August 27, 1998
(Phone:  202/358-1979)

Keith Henry
Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA
(Phone:  757/864-6120)

Kirsten Williams
Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA
(Phone:  805/258-2662)

Anthony Castrogiovanni
GASL, Inc., Ronkonkoma, NY
(Phone:  516/737-6100 x128)

Lowell Keel
MicroCraft, Inc., Tullahoma, TN
(Phone:  615/455-2617 x235)

RELEASE:  98-154

FIRST HYPERSONIC PROPULSION HARDWARE DELIVERED

     A revolutionary new engine that ultimately may reduce 
the cost of putting payloads in orbit has been delivered to 
NASA for testing.

     The 30-inch long "scramjet" engine was fabricated by 
GASL, Inc., Ronkonkoma, NY, for the Hyper-X program, an 
ambitious research effort to demonstrate hypersonic 
propulsion technologies in flight.  

     The engine is the first program hardware to be completed 
and will be used in high-speed ground tests at NASA's Langley 
Research Center, Hampton, VA.  

     An identical engine being fabricated now will be mated 
to its flight vehicle in February 1999 and delivered to NASA's
Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, leading to the 
first flight of the program in early 2000.

     The contract for flight and ground hardware is 
implemented for NASA by a team led by MicroCraft, Tullahoma 
TN, and including Boeing, Seal Beach, CA, and Accurate 
Automation, Chattanooga, TN.  A second contract, to Orbital 
Sciences Corp., Dulles, VA, will provide rockets to boost the 
research vehicles to test altitude.

     Langley manages the five-year, approximately $170 
million Hyper-X program, and Dryden is responsible for 
vehicle fabrication and flight tests.

     Three flights are planned -- two at Mach 7 and one at 
Mach 10 (seven and ten times the speed of sound).  The flight 
tests will be conducted within the Western Test Range off the 
coast of southern California.  Each of three planned vehicles 
will be flown once.

     Hyper-X vehicles, which have been designated X-43, will 
be boosted to their test point on the first stage of a 
modified Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus booster rocket and 
will be launched by NASA's B-52 from an altitude of 19,000 to 
43,000 feet, depending upon the mission.  For each flight, 
the booster will accelerate the X-43 to Mach 7 or 10 at 
altitudes up to 100,000 feet, where it will separate from the 
booster and fly under its own power.  Mach 7 is approximately 
5,000 mph at sea level.  Mach 10 is approximately 7,200 mph 
at sea level.

     Hyper-X program managers hope to demonstrate "air-
breathing" engine technologies that could ultimately be 
applied in vehicle types from hypersonic (Mach 5 and above) 
aircraft to reusable space launchers.  By comparison, the 
high-flying SR-71 reconnaissance airplane, which flies more 
than Mach 3, is the fastest air-breathing aircraft to date.  

     Although prior flight experiments conducted by the 
Russians using a rocket booster have demonstrated air-
breathing engine operation at Mach 5 to 6 conditions, the X-
43 will be the first free-flying demonstration of an 
airframe-integrated, air-breathing engine and will extend the 
flight range to Mach 10.

     Extending air-breathing technologies to much greater 
speeds requires the development of scramjet engines, the type 
that will propel the research vehicles.  Unlike a rocket, 
which must carry its own oxygen for combustion, an air-
breathing aircraft burns oxygen in air scooped from the 
atmosphere.  Air-breathing hypersonic vehicles therefore can 
be lighter and should carry more cargo/payload than 
equivalent rocket-powered systems.
 
     A ramjet engine operates by subsonic combustion of fuel 
in a stream of air compressed by the forward speed of the 
aircraft itself, as opposed to a conventional jet engine, in 
which the fan blades of the compressor section compress the 
air.  A scramjet (supersonic-combustion ramjet) is a ramjet 
engine in which the airflow through the entire engine remains 
supersonic (faster than Mach 1 or the speed of sound).  The 
fuel for the X-43 will be hydrogen.
- end -

     Images of the Hyper-X/X-43 vehicle and additional 
information can be obtained at the following URLs:  

	STILLS:  
http://lisar.larc.nasa.gov/LISAR/BROWSE/hyperx.html
	ANIMATION: http://lava.larc.nasa.gov/BROWSE/hyperx.html
	FACT SHEET:  http://oea.larc.nasa.gov/PAIS/Hyper-X.html