Nov 16 2004
From The Space Library
NASA's X-43A research vehicle established an unofficial world speed record for aircraft of nearly 7,000 miles per hour (11,265 kilometers per hour) or Mach 10 ~ 10 times the speed of sound. The X-43A contained an experimental engine ~ called a supersonic combustion ramjet or scramjet. The scramjet engine had no moving parts and did not use fuel from an on-board tank, as is the case with rockets. Instead, the engine used oxygen from the atmosphere, passing through the vehicle, to ignite fuel. NASA had explored the use of scramjets as an alternative to rocket power for space-access vehicles, with the hope that scramjet vehicles would operate more like an airplane than a rocket. The mission lifted off from NASA's DFRC at Edwards Air Force Base in California at 2:30 p.m. (PST). A NASA B-52 carried the unpiloted X-43A to an altitude of 40,000 feet (7.6 miles or 12.2 kilometers). Before the X-43A had attained at an altitude of 111,000 feet (21 miles or 33.8 kilometers), a Pegasus rocket booster launched from the B-52, providing an initial acceleration that enabled the X-43A to attain an altitude of 111,000 feet (21 miles or 33.8 kilometers). The experimental aircraft flew for nearly 10 seconds at that altitude before descending into the Pacific Ocean as planned, nearly 800 miles (1,287 kilometers) off the coast of California. (John Johnson, “X-43A Aircraft Sets Speed Record at 6,500 MPH,” Los Angeles Times, 17 November 2004; NASA, “NASA's X-43A Scramjet Breaks Speed Record,” news release 04-373, 16 November 2004.
The SMART-1 spacecraft, the first of ESA's Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology (SMART), successfully completed its first orbit of the Moon. ESA had launched SMART-1 in September 2003 to study the Moon's surface. SMART-1 was noteworthy for its use of a host of techniques and technologies to reach lunar orbit ~ including a solar-electric propulsion system or ion engine, which made the journey of 52.2 million miles (84 million kilometers) from Earth to the Moon using only 130 pounds (59 kilograms) of the 181 pounds (82 kilograms) of xenon fuel that it had carried. That fuel consumption rate was equivalent to more than 5 million miles per gallon. The 809-pound (367-kilogram) spacecraft was able to achieve this rate of fuel efficiency using solar panels. During 13 months of expanding orbits around Earth, the solar panels had charged the xenon gas atoms, providing the spacecraft with occasional thrusts. ESA hoped to replace conventional propulsion systems ~ which were either too expensive or incapable of fulfilling the same objective ~ with the new solar-panel technology, to propel future spacecraft further into space. (ESA, “Europe Reaches the Moon,” ESA news release 60-2004, 16 November 2004, http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM2S8WJD1E_index_0.html (accessed 2 February 2010); David Rising for Associated Press, “Europe's First Moon Mission Successful,” 17 November 2004.
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