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DARPA this morning launched a rocket carrying what's hoped to be an unbelievably fast unmanned plane that can fly at 13,000 mph, an unprecedented speed that would take it from New York to Los Angeles in less than 12 minutes and potentially deliver a military strike anywhere in the world in under an hour.
Designed to explore long-duration hypersonic flight, the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) was launched aboard a Minotaur IV Lite rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
It's expected to glide through the upper atmosphere over the Pacific at up to Mach 20 and then splash down near Kwajalein Atoll, some 4,000 miles from Vandenberg.
Over 20 "test assets" on sea, land, air, and in space will be gathering data during the flight to improve understanding of the extreme challenges of hypersonic flight, which denotes speeds beyond Mach 5, as the vehicle performs maneuvers.
The flight is the second for the test vehicle following its maiden flight in April 2010, during which nine minutes of flight data were gathered, including 139 seconds flying at Mach 17-22. Two-way communication and GPS signals were maintained while it flew at 3.6 miles per second.
In May 2010, the Air Force's X-51A Waverider set a record for an aircraft powered by a scramjet (or "supersonic combustion ramjet") engine with 200 seconds of autonomous flight at Mach 5.
Check out this vid of the HTV-2's expected flight profile.
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Designed to explore long-duration hypersonic flight, the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) was launched aboard a Minotaur IV Lite rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
It's expected to glide through the upper atmosphere over the Pacific at up to Mach 20 and then splash down near Kwajalein Atoll, some 4,000 miles from Vandenberg.
Over 20 "test assets" on sea, land, air, and in space will be gathering data during the flight to improve understanding of the extreme challenges of hypersonic flight, which denotes speeds beyond Mach 5, as the vehicle performs maneuvers.
The flight is the second for the test vehicle following its maiden flight in April 2010, during which nine minutes of flight data were gathered, including 139 seconds flying at Mach 17-22. Two-way communication and GPS signals were maintained while it flew at 3.6 miles per second.
In May 2010, the Air Force's X-51A Waverider set a record for an aircraft powered by a scramjet (or "supersonic combustion ramjet") engine with 200 seconds of autonomous flight at Mach 5.
Check out this vid of the HTV-2's expected flight profile.
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