Hypersonic Craft Lost During Test .. 6 Mach Speed Test

[Spartan]

The U.S. Air Force says its most ambitious test of its X-51 WaveRider hypersonic aircraft ended in failure less than a minute after launch on Tuesday, due to a flaw in one of the craft's control fins. The X-51 broke apart after it was dropped from a B-52 bomber, with pieces falling into the Pacific Ocean, a spokesman for the project told me today.
If the [url="http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/15/13299701-hypersonic-craft-lost-during-test?lite#"]test[/url] had proceeded as planned, the Boeing-built X-51 would have shot through the sky for a five-minute flight at a speed of up to 3,600 mph (5,800 kilometers per hour), or six times the speed of sound. Instead, the Air Force is going back to the drawing board.

Hypersonic scramjet propulsion has been widely touted as eventually opening up the way for flights between London and New York in less than an hour. But in reality, the first [url="http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/15/13299701-hypersonic-craft-lost-during-test?lite#"]application[/url] is more likely to come in the form of super-fast cruise missiles. (Scramjet is a short term for "supersonic combustion ramjet," and there have been [url="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12024489/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/supersonic-scramjet-tested-australia/"]many[/url] [url="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39271016/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/railway-sky-nasa-ponders-new-launch-system/"]efforts[/url] [url="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4609200/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/nasa-successfully-tests-hypersonic-jet/"]through the years[/url] to perfect scramjet-powered aircraft.)
In a statement, the Air Force said the unmanned craft was successfully launched from the B-52 over Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center Sea Range, in the Pacific near California's coast, at about 11:36 a.m. PT (2:36 p.m. ET) on Tuesday. The X-51's rocket booster fired as planned — but 16 seconds later, a fault was identified with the cruiser control fin, the Air Force said. When the X-51 separated from the booster, about 15 seconds later, the cruiser couldn't maintain control and was lost.