11 August 2011
DARPA Launches and Loses Hypersonic Aircraft: Update
by James Burgess
OilPrice.com

Aug. 11, 2011 -- UPDATE: DARPA has lost contact with its experimental hypersonic glider -- and possibly lost the vehicle itself -- following the latest test flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central Coast of Calif. Tuesday morning.

The unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 -- a test rocket designed to fly at Mach 20, or around 13,000 miles per hour -- successfully launched at approximately 7:45 a.m. PDT and separated properly from the rocket carrying it to the edge of space. But the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research group, revealed on Twitter that it had lost sight of the missile once it entered its mission glide phase.

“Range assets have lost telemetry with HTV2," the agency announced shortly after the flight. "Downrange assets did not reacquire tracking or telemetry. HTV2 has an autonomous flight termination capability. More to follow,” the agency wrote about an hour later.

The Central Coast fog was too dense to see the glider take-off -- only the sounds of the launch resonated through the air. No light from the Falcon was visible, all that was seen was a whiteout from the fog and green hills in the foreground.

But when the aircraft was in flight, the latest status report was broadcast across the Air Force base from a loudspeaker where attendees watched the launch. Over that Countdown Network, the Range Launch Conductor said that it had lost optical site of the HTV-2 At approximately 8:15 a.m. PDT.

After 2,700 seconds of flight, the launch ended, a fate reminiscent of the April 2010 initial test flight that also ended when the military lost contact with the vehicle.

A Vandenberg Air Force Base spokesman called the launch a success; DARPA has not responded to repeated FoxNews.com calls, however, and emails to DARPAs representatives working on the project went unanswered.

Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, former U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, told Fox News that the weapon is designed to be able to hit targets anywhere within minutes. But whether it will be realized is in doubt, in light of the two unsuccessful test flights to date.

"I think that we've seen from what happened today and what happened last April that there are a lot of challenges in front of it." The overall cost of the program is a key issue, McInerney noted.

"It costs about 1 billion dollars if we wanted to field about 10 or 20 of them per weapon ... and that's just not affordable," he said.

The project began in 2003 and cost $320 million, according to Bloomberg News.

"It is a marvelous research and development exercise, we've learned a lot about hypersonic speeds, et cetera. But I just don't see the practicality in it," McInerney told Fox News.

The Falcon HTV-2 is intended to travel at speeds of 13,000 mph or Mach 20 through the Earth’s atmosphere. Moving at these paces, it would take less than 12 minutes to fly from Los Angeles to New York.

If DARPA ultimately considers this launch a failure, the agency will no longer participate in the program. It’ll likely be the responsibility of another military branch to continue the work of a real missile.

The following was reported earlier today:

DARPA has successfully launched the second flight test of an unmanned hypersonic glider Thursday, a test of new technologies needed for a global strike bomber concept designed to fly 20 times the speed of sound.

The ultra-fast vehicle, called the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California atop a Minotaur 4 rocket after a one-day delay due to bad weather. Liftoff is occurred at 10:45 a.m. PDT.

Mach 20, or 20 times the speed of sound, varies depending on elevation and air temperature, but the Falcon will be traveling in excess of 13,000 mph. At that speed, it could travel from New York to Los Angeles in less than 12 minutes, and friction with the air can heat it up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

The HTV-2 is part of a DARPA plan called Prompt Global Strike. If testing is successful, it could be used as an advanced weapons system whose incredible speed makes it capable of knocking out any target in the world within an hour of launch.

DARPA's first Falcon test, HTV-1, did not go as planned. Researchers lost contact with the vehicle nine minutes into the first flight test in April 2010, and failsafe programming caused the Falcon HTV-2 to make a controlled dive into the ocean.

Researchers are hoping to push the vehicle further and gather more data with this subsequent test.

"DARPA looks forward to conquering more unknowns about long-duration hypersonic missions. We need to increase our technical knowledge to support future hypersonic technology development," said Dave Neyland, director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office. "We gained valuable data from the first flight, made some adjustments based on the findings of an engineering review board to improve this second flight, and now we’re ready to put all of that to the test." (DARPA stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and is part of the U.S. Department of Defense.)

Some changes include an adjusted center of gravity and lower angle of attack (angle at which the vehicle hits the air).

A Minotaur rocket will launch the HTV-2 nearly into Earth orbit, then the HTV-2 will detach and follow a glide trajectory at Mach 20. More than 20 sensors will collect data during the flight.

The HTV-2 could replace the current intercontinental ballistic missile systems. There were only two HTV-2 prototypes built and DARPA has no plans to build more, so after the failure of the first test, DARPA has only one more shot at a successful flight or the project will be discontinued.