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Australian Hyshot Experiment Launched, Results Still Unknown
By SPACE.com Staff
posted: 11:00 am ET
30 October 2001
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History's first flight test of supersonic combustion technology was launched from Australia late Monday on a suborbital rocket, according to officials from the University of Queensland (UQ). Known as Hyshot, the $1.5 million experiment lifted off from the Woomera Rocket Range at 9:30 p.m. EST (0230 GMT Tuesday, 1300 Local). An international team of researchers is analysing data from the experiment, which has proved to be inconclusive so far, said Allan Paull, project leader. Officials expect to know more about what happened within the next day. The effort is being billed as an attempt at an engineering miracle, potentially one the biggest developments in aerospace history. While tests of scramjet propulsion technology is thought to have been done in secret by military organizations, UQ researchers already hold the record for being the first group reported in the open literature to "fly" a scramjet in a UQ ground test facility in 1993. At the heart of the Australian space odyssey, it is hoped the experiments will validate information already captured in UQ's T4 ground shock tunnel, one of the few facilities on Earth capable of conducting ground based scramjet experiments for flights at Mach numbers of the order of 7.6 or higher. Scramjets are oxygen-breathing engines that work at hypersonic speeds, giving off water as the only by-product and only needing some hydrogen to run. First proposed in the 1950s, they have never been tested in actual flight. The Australian tests will be very fast, at almost Mach 7.6, or 7.6 times the speed of sound. They will not be measured in kilometers per hour, but kilometers per second. If the scramjet works in flight, it will be one of the major technological advances since Chuck Yaeger became the first person to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947. Researchers say that scramjet technology would make flight possible at virtually any speed and altitude, including the astounding prospect of escaping the sensible atmosphere of the Earth and coasting into a nearby permanent orbit. While scramjets do raise the possibility of Sydney to London flights in two hours, such propulsion could also revolutionize the launch of cargo into space by substantially lowering costs. Scramjets are much lighter than conventional engines that produce the same power. They have the added benefit that they do not have to carry most of their propellant as they use oxygen from the atmosphere.
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