x-43 to launch February 21
NASA will attempt another launch of their highly experimental hypersonic engine. The last attempt ended in disaster when the vehicle deviated from the planned flight course and it was deliberately destroyed.
The upcoming X-43 launch is planned to attain Mach 7 - seven times the speed of sound - by using a Pegasus booster rocket to accelerate the X-43, which then relies on its own supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet engine to combine fuel with ambient air for combustion at that speed. Central to the X-43 program is its scramjet engine, blended to the vehicle’s flattened airframe. The promise of scramjet propulsion technology is the ability to save weight and valuable onboard space by scooping oxygen from the atmosphere at high altitudes instead of carrying oxygen in tanks as conventional rocket motors must. The X-43 is considered hypersonic, using the term for flight at or above five times the speed of sound.