Woomera, in South Australia, is the world’s largest testing range and was the scene of the successful launch of an experimental rocket called HiFiRE 5B, that attained a speed of Mach 7.5 or 7.5 times the speed of sound.
Researchers from UQ, Defence Science and Technology Group, the US Air Force Research Laboratory, Boeing and HiFiRE (Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation Program) were involved in the project, reports Gizmodo.
The May 18 test was one of the 10 tests being conducted to investigate the physical phenomenon of flying faster than five times the speed of sound. The experimental rocket achieved a speed that was much faster than the Concorde and passed the threshold for hypersonic travel that is defined as going five times the speed of sound.
Professor Michael Smart with the University of Queensland’s School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering says the achievement has placed Australia’s aerospace industry on the international stage. “The knowledge gained from these experiments will be applied to develop future flight vehicles and testing of advanced air-breathing hypersonic propulsion engines, known as scramjets,” Professor Smart said.
Smart can already envision air travel around the Earth being within a two-hour flight, and he also thinks the technology will prove to be useful as an alternative to putting satellites in orbit and for space travel. That response is the scientific verification for working further on developing hypersonic technology.
The first test of the HIFIRE rocket was done in 2009, explains Phys.org, with each test building on the previous one. Smart says the test last week was to measure the heat on the outside of the rocket. In 2017, testing will involve a scramjet engine separating from the rocket booster and flying on its own.
As is still the case with hypersonic flight, the intense aerodynamic heating of the outer surface of the vehicle due to friction and shock wave heating must be addressed. This one feature of hypersonic aviation is what drives the design of these vehicles.
For flights around the world, there is intense interest in developing vehicles that can fly within the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds. Of course, to date, the only technological application has been a special ramjet engine capable of a supersonic flow of oxygen throughout the engine. It’s called a supersonic combustion ramjet or Scramjet.