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Subscribe to RSSThe plane that was slated to fly six times the speed of sound lost control only seconds into the flight. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
The U.S. Air Force says its most ambitious test of its X-51 WaveRider hypersonic aircraft ended in failure less than a minute after launch on Tuesday, due to a flaw in one of the craft's control fins. The X-51 broke apart after it was dropped from a B-52 bomber, with pieces falling into the Pacific Ocean, a spokesman for the project told me today.
If the test had proceeded as planned, the Boeing-built X-51 would have shot through the sky for a five-minute flight at a speed of up to 3,600 mph (5,800 kilometers per hour), or six times the speed of sound. Instead, the Air Force is going back to the drawing board.
Hypersonic scramjet propulsion has been widely touted as eventually opening up the way for flights between London and New York in less than an hour. But in reality, the first application is more likely to come in the form of super-fast cruise missiles. (Scramjet is a short term for "supersonic combustion ramjet," and there have been many efforts through the years to perfect scramjet-powered aircraft.)
In a statement, the Air Force said the unmanned craft was successfully launched from the B-52 over Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center Sea Range, in the Pacific near California's coast, at about 11:36 a.m. PT (2:36 p.m. ET) on Tuesday. The X-51's rocket booster fired as planned — but 16 seconds later, a fault was identified with the cruiser control fin, the Air Force said. When the X-51 separated from the booster, about 15 seconds later, the cruiser couldn't maintain control and was lost.
"'Came apart' is the term that they used," said Daryl Mayer, a spokesman for the Air Force's 88th Air Base Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
The WaveRider never had a chance to reach supersonic speed.
"It is unfortunate that a problem with this subsystem caused a termination before we could light the scramjet engine," Charlie Brink, X-51A program manager for the Air Force Research Laboratory, said in today's statement. "All our data showed we had created the right conditions for engine ignition, and we were very hopeful to meet our test objectives."
The Air Force said the control system had proven reliable during the X-51A's two previous flights — including a successful test in May 2010 and a not-so-successful test in June 2011.
Today's statement said program officials will conduct a "rigorous evaluation" of this week's test to assess all the factors behind the failure. One of the four X-51A vehicles remains, but officials have not decided when or if that vehicle will fly, the Air Force said. The X-51 project's cost has been estimated at $140 million.
More about supersonic flight:
- Video: What the X-51 was designed to do
- Futuristic space plane closer to reality
- Supersonic biplane puts an end to sonic booms
- Supersonic drone set to fly in 2013, if ...
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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This is the cost of learning how to do things better. USAF will look at the telemetry, incorporate changes into the next X-51 and try again. We all remember that our first successful satellite launch came after 18 (I think that is the number) utter failures?
How the hell you suppose to eat peanuts at that speed without them shooting through the back of your throat, let alone trying to pee at 3600 mph I can't see keeping it straight. I guess at that speed the flight will be short and there won't be a need for any food or the need for a rest room since your skinny butt will pinned to a little bucket seat and you'll be @!$%#'n in your pants, hahahaha
Go back to grade school and relearn elementary physics. Do not be afraid of the 8 year olds making you look stupid.
Grade school? Isn't that funding cut too? So we can waste our money on rich people and stupid things like finding out if there is life on Mars?
Borg,
Depending on where on the planet you are, you are probably moving at about 600-1000 MPH as we speak. Speed of sound is about 740 MPH. Go to the equator, and you can eat peanuts at super sonic speeds.
SR-71 set the new york to london record at just under two hours using 1960 era tech carrying (2) humans whats up with these people?
The design speed for the X-51 is about twice that of an SR-71.
Detroiter,
The SR-71 was a military aircraft purpose built for its job. It also had to refuel right after takeoff after the hull of the aircraft expanded to close the leaks in the fuel tanks. Not a ride for passengers. A commercial aircraft with scramjets will cut the NYC to London time in half with hundreds of passengers, not two people.
Coulda-woulda-shoulda. Another high-priced toy down the toilet. That's gonna help the national debt.
A couple of hundred million already budgeted dollars out of a $16 trillion debt. Not even a drop in the bucket. Math illiterate.
Shuddup......! if it wasn't for NASA you would still be scraping burnt food of of stainless frying pans, and a lot of other technology that the space race brought us.
For anyone who thinks this will be the answer to faster travel should remember that the Concorde had its problems and it was only supersonic. A hypersonic aircraft is not the answer to everyday travel.
Supersonic = faster than sound
Hypersonic = faster than sound
Buzzword = sounds good, means nothing, sells product.
I think hypersonic generally refers to speeds that are several times the speed of sound. Mach 1.1 wouldn't be hypersonic. But you're right, it is buzzwordy.
The term "hypersonic" has generally been assumed to refer to speeds of Mach 5 and above since the 70's if I recall.
Blame the fin, haha, and not the engineers. Another experiment down the drain.
Getting close to beam me up Scotty. Some day..... well maybe.......or maybe not.
Teleportation technology is far too dangerous in the hands of humans, terrorists and republicans, and must absolutely be kept away from me at all costs.
Why spend the energy hollering for your common-law trailer wife, when you can just teleport a beer into your hand?
Terrorists would teleport bombs.
Republicans would teleport everyone's money into their pockets...
and I...
I would teleport all politicians, terrorists, wall street speculators, board members, religious extremists, pedophiles, Westboro Bastard Church, and all other undesirables half the distance between the earth and the moon and let the vacuum of space clean up the mess.
They better hope China doesn't pick up the pieces.
Probably made in China.
Of course the first few hundred applications for this will be New And Improved Ways to Kill Towlieheads. Eventually, when the military applications have paid the way, the first civilian applications will start to trickle down. Of course, don't expect to jump from LA to London at 3600 mph - that is reserved for cruise missiles. Civilian applications will be limited to a fraction of that speed.
Of course, what they're really not telling us is...
Blinded by Romney's promises to the military industrial complex to buy thousands of these, so he can lead us into glorious war against Iran, backed by Israeli nukes, we'll need these to shoot down other nukes from terrorist nations, as well as Russia and China when he sends our troops over there to drive up the price of oil.
No matter what, it's win-win for puppeteer Ryan, Romney, and their Corporate sponsors. They can afford $35/gallon for gas, $25/gallon for milk, and for the rest of us... f--k us, we're just here to pay for them anyways.
Take 2 pills
Go to bed
Call me in the morning
Please provide pills.
LSD-25 preferred, no buffering agent required.
You may deliver them here:
99 New York Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20226 USA
And what was the total price tag?
GlobalSecurity.org estimates $140 million for the project, which has produced four X-51s.
Love the irony of the comments about gov't wasting money being written on a system developed by the gov't.
I kept looking for the word "unmanned" in the article - I guess it's safe to assume there was no pilot on board, right?
Right, I'll add that in just to be clear.
Give the project to NASA. They have a better track record than the airforce, and scientists instead of officers.
The Air Force funded the project with a contractor, rumored to be Boeing. Blame the scientists/engineers at Boeing, not the Air Force.
Wrights failed.
"told me today"? didnt you ever learn not to use first person in news reports? ruined...
This is a convention that I use a bit more in the log than I would otherwise. Sorry it ruined it for you.
If only are
government could get its head out of its ass, and acknowledge the need to move the
masses, how about a high speed train system that could carry thousands of
people instead of 80 or 90 greedy people.
This country
has needed a high speed rail system for years crisscrossing every state of the
Union, and I mean a system separate from the freight rail system, but this
country is to stuck on the car and the airplane, that we can’t see that in less
than 20 years fuel of all types will be so expensive that driving will be limited
to just the rich and the greedy.
This country’s
prosperity hinges on low cost transportation, but the conservatives in America are
too stupid and greedy to want to help the working class to rise up.
The knuckle heads,
who want to fly from LA to New York in an hour, need to stop taking drugs. The concord was such an airplane, but the
breaking of the sound barrier over towns and cities was unacceptable then and
unacceptable now.
Just to
ponder the thought of such an airplane is a reflection of how big business runs
this country and how they control the government.
I had a bone
head reply to my earlier statement about the fact that it cost too much and
that, their want be enough riders to make it cost affective.
Well, I’ve got
your solution, at every stop there should be shop and stores of all types,
where a person could buy anything they want and need, example: haircuts, shoes,
food, clothing etc.… The rent alone
would subsidize the cost of rail system; the rider fees would be overflow cash. It worked in Japan, it will work in America.
Now please let’s
not have any more excuses.
Thank you
The reason our mass transit system in the US Sucks is because of the Auto Industry. There were initial plans for an expanded rail system in the middle of the 20th century but the auto giants killed it because it would have meant fewer cars being sold.
That would have hurt the Unions more than the Companies Bottom Line.
Go back to Russia, we dont want your trains your Bolshevic
marxist.
Oh, Well....Another $billion down the drain...
Bring back the X-15. It went faster!
The X-15 was powered by a rocket motor with a very short burn time. The X-51 is a test bed for an entirely new class of jet engine that will eventually be used to power aircraft.
The X-15 has seating for one, in a space suit. If that is the way you want to travel, go for it. As for the money? About $35 million, not even on a Congressman's (or Congresswoman's) radar.
Keep in mind, we just placed a 1 ton vehicle on Mars. It's not like our engineering is deteriorating. It's really hard to do things really really fast in a thick atmosphere.
Too bad it failed. I wanted to be the first passenger on one! (not really).
Money is never flushed down the drain when it is towards progression. There will always be failures in science, if there wasn't there would be no resolution to problems. If you try to launch something through the air faster then the speed of sound things will pop up. You have to resolve them, conclude them, and build again. This is how we become the best in the world. Seriously, how did you think inventions and scientific progression worked?
Any word on the pilot, did he get out alive?
On an unmanned craft?
In accordance with tradition, they buried the survivors at sea.
Yeah! the auto pilot, ya know the inflatable crewman with the satisfied look on his face from Airplane............. ;-)
China has building all our stuff for so long we forgot how to do it. Or maybe lockheed is just stalling for more R&D money.
jon, try Boeing, not Lockheed. Do some research before you post. I did before this one, took less than 30 seconds.
Shes breaking up .. shes breaking up........ #*^*.....
We can rebuild him.......
Bigger, Stronger, Faster......
Ha Ha Ha..... just has to relive the 70's... :)
Better that the 80's Zepplin Rules!!! NA Na NaNa Na Na Body's Fault!
SOorry missed the No, We go four already but now we'er steady then she went!
No big deal Just ad another few billion to our deficit,,,Can you tell me again why the concord is not fast enough??
kenufc, the aircraft cost approx $35 million, not billions. The NYC to London passenger reference is pure speculation, since the engine is being built under contract to the Air Force. It will probably be better used to launch things into space much cheaper than rockets.
The concord is no more.