NASA awards studies to advance reusable airbreathing hypersonic flight testing

NASA in August issued two awards to study how to advance reusable, airbreathing hypersonic flight testing, contracting SpaceWorks Enterprises of Atlanta, Georgia, and Stratolaunch of Mojave, California. SpaceWorks received $500,000 to focus on the X-60 platform and Stratolaunch received $1.2 million to focus on its Talon-A platform; both companies will support a six-month NASA study exploring how current vehicles could be modified to meet needs for reusable, high-cadence, affordable flight-testing capabilities.

NASA's Hypersonic Technology Project works to advance "airbreathing," reusable hypersonic aircraft that take in air as they fly, allowing for much longer sustained cruising at hypersonic speeds, in contrast to rockets that achieve hypersonic speeds by carrying supplies of oxygen to allow their fuel to burn.

The awards are aimed at providing an affordable bridge between hypersonic ground and flight tests and at having industry help define the capabilities needed to achieve flight test requirements. "With these awards, NASA will collaborate with the commercial hypersonics industry to identify new ways to evaluate technologies through flight tests while we address the challenges of reusable, routine, airbreathing, hypersonic flight," said Dr.

Nateri Madavan, director of NASA’s Advanced Air Vehicles Program.

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