DARPA Launches, Loses Contact With Hypersonic Aircraft

DARPA Launches, Loses Contact With Hypersonic Aircraft





The U.S. Defense Advance Research Projects Agency on Thursday launched the second of its hypersonic flight tests, and promptly lost contact with it. The test is part of a long-term project to create a craft that can travel across the globe in an hour.

The unmanned craft, called the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2,) launched at around eight in the morning West Coast time from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The plan was to launch the vehicle on an Air Force Minotaur IV rocket and to guide it to the edge of space, before the plane separates and travels at the speed of 13,000 miles per hour (about 20 times the speed of sound) on its way back to Earth, where it'll fall into the ocean.

DARPA said in a statement that the goal of this mission is to fine-tune technical challenges in aerodynamics, aerothermal effects, navigation and control. Engineers adjusted the vehicle's center of gravity, changed some of the dynamics of the flight, and included a system to better control the flight flaps to try and maintain better stability during flight.

As of Thursday morning, it's not clear whether any of that helped. DARPA has been tweeting about the launch Thursday morning, and reported shortly after the launch that it had lost contact with the craft. (But it did reach its "glide phase.) About an hour after that, another tweet read: "Downrange assets did not reacquire tracking or telemetry. #HTV2 has an autonomous flight termination capability."

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/darpa-launches-loses-contact-with-hypersonic-aircraft.php?ref=fpb

now to see if anyone recognizes that refference

expect to keep track of something that small when launched into space?

It also has a complex system of control jets which (LOL) apparently aren't as complex as I thought. But if you look at the video on the page at the link in the OP, it doesn't appear to be under a 3 or so feet, at least.

PB

not sure about 2 inches long but since it was much larger than that.....

More here in depth here, plus a statement from DARPA:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-vandenberg-hypersonic-aircraft-20110812,0,6403143.story