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X-43A flight delayed.
Michael Braukus
Headquarters, Washington February 17, 2004 (Phone: 202/358-1979) Leslie Williams Dryden Flight Research Center, Calif. (Phone: 661/276-3893) Keith Henry Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va. (Phone: 757/864-6120) RELEASE: 04-050 X-43A FLIGHT DELAYED The flight of NASA's X-43A has been postponed, due to an incident with the rudder actuator on the booster. On Feb 11, during setup at Orbital Sciences Corporation for testing of the rudder and its actuator, an anomaly caused the actuator to go hard over and hit its mechanical stop, exceeding the torque to which the units were qualified. Although the actuator may still function nominally, it will have to be replaced. A joint government/contractor incident investigation is under way to determine the cause and corrective actions. Prior to this incident, the program was considering a delay of the flight to late March to retune the booster autopilot, to optimize its performance based on the latest test data. With the requirement for a replacement actuator, the two activities will now be done in parallel. Planning is now focused on a late-March to early-April flight. The X-43A is a high-risk, high-payoff flight research program. Designed to fly at seven and ten times the speed of sound, and use scramjet engines instead of traditional rocket power, the small, 12-foot-long X-43A could represent a major leap forward toward the goal of providing faster, more reliable and less expensive access to space. The stack, consisting of the X-43A and its modified Pegasus booster, will be air-launched by NASA's B-52 carrier aircraft at 40,000 feet altitude. The booster will accelerate the experimental vehicle to Mach 7 at approximately 95,000 feet altitude. At booster burnout, the X-43 will separate and fly under its own power on a preprogrammed path. The flight will take place over a restricted Navy Pacific Ocean range. -end- -- ------------------- Jacques :-) Editor: www.spacepatches.info |
#2
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X-43A flight delayed.
"Jacques van Oene" writes:
The X-43A is a high-risk, high-payoff flight research program. Designed to fly at seven and ten times the speed of sound, and use scramjet engines instead of traditional rocket power, the small, 12-foot-long X-43A could represent a major leap forward toward the goal of providing faster, more reliable and less expensive access to space. Again with the air-breathing, space launch vehicle religion. I'm wondering if the guys working on the program believe in the air-breathing, space launch vehicle religion, or if they're just using the religion to gain political (monetary) support for the program. Jeff -- Remove "no" and "spam" from email address to reply. If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie. |
#3
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X-43A flight delayed.
jeff findley wrote:
"Jacques van Oene" writes: The X-43A is a high-risk, high-payoff flight research program. Designed to fly at seven and ten times the speed of sound, and use scramjet engines instead of traditional rocket power, the small, 12-foot-long X-43A could represent a major leap forward toward the goal of providing faster, more reliable and less expensive access to space. Again with the air-breathing, space launch vehicle religion. I'm wondering if the guys working on the program believe in the air-breathing, space launch vehicle religion, or if they're just using the religion to gain political (monetary) support for the program. Jeff Or it could be a relatively simple basic research/experimental program (hence the "X" designation) to help develop and better understand supersonic combustion as a means of air-breathing propulsion, regardless of what kind of vehicle a scramjet might propel. That *is* still part of NASA's basic mission. The fact that the NASA PA PR machine hypes it as something else is hardly surprising, is it? -- Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D. Reformed Aerospace Engineer Remove invalid nonsense for email. |
#4
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X-43A flight delayed.
Herb Schaltegger lid writes:
The fact that the NASA PA PR machine hypes it as something else is hardly surprising, is it? Surely this is the problem. I just wonder if the guys actually working on the program believe the PR or if they laugh as much as I do when they read the press releases for their own program. :-O Jeff -- Remove "no" and "spam" from email address to reply. If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie. |
#5
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X-43A flight delayed.
In article , jeff findley wrote:
Herb Schaltegger lid writes: The fact that the NASA PA PR machine hypes it as something else is hardly surprising, is it? Surely this is the problem. I just wonder if the guys actually working on the program believe the PR or if they laugh as much as I do when they read the press releases for their own program. :-O Oh, if you can't laugh at your own press releases then there's just no hope left... (my favourite memory of writing press releases was us carefully crafting something appropriate for the Returning Officer to say in one, only to have her point out that a) she was there and b) she hadn't said any of it. We got her to read it to us...) -- -Andrew Gray |
#6
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Successful Clinton-era X space projects? (was X-43A flight delayed.)
"Jacques van Oene" wrote in news:jrtYb.68812$A7.6608
@amsnews05.chello.com: X-43A FLIGHT DELAYED etc. Okay, we've got X-33, X-34, X-37, X-38, and X-43 that've either failed or had big-time problems. Were there any X-type space-related projects during the Clinton era that succeeded? I'm having a hard time coming up with a single one that's on schedule, much less succeeded. (I suppose X-38 succeeded, in that testing airframe landed on its chute). -- Reed |
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Successful Clinton-era X space projects? (was X-43A flightdelayed.)
On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, Reed Snellenberger wrote: "Jacques van Oene" wrote in news:jrtYb.68812$A7.6608 @amsnews05.chello.com: X-43A FLIGHT DELAYED etc. Okay, we've got X-33, X-34, X-37, X-38, and X-43 that've either failed or had big-time problems. Were there any X-type space-related projects during the Clinton era that succeeded? X-37 and X-34 I'd not describe either of those as failures or suffering from showstopper technical issues the way X-43 and X-33 did. There was nothing on X-34 that could not have been overcome with time, and a relatively small amount of additional money as compared with X-33, for instance. And to say that there is something peculiar over this is to ignore past X-programs that also suffered failures, were cancelled before they could fly, ect. I'm having a hard time coming up with a single one that's on schedule, much less succeeded. (I suppose X-38 succeeded, in that testing airframe landed on its chute). X-38 is on it's own as an X-project in this catagory. There were no significant failures in the program, and only minimal overruns in the budget. Even the schedule for flight milestones wasn't so bad as far as slippages was concerned. Yet dispite all of that, it was still cancelled. Now we do not have a near term program to replace/augment Soyuz as the station lifeboat. -Mike |
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Successful Clinton-era X space projects? (was X-43A flight delayed.)
DC-X
Reed Snellenberger wrote in message 3.121... Okay, we've got X-33, X-34, X-37, X-38, and X-43 that've either failed or had big-time problems. Were there any X-type space-related projects during the Clinton era that succeeded? |
#9
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X-43A flight delayed.
The X-43A is a high-risk, high-payoff flight research program. Designed to fly at seven and ten times the speed of sound, and use scramjet engines instead of traditional rocket power, the small, 12-foot-long X-43A could represent a major leap forward toward the goal of providing faster, more reliable and less expensive access to space. My goodness. I wonder how many of the people involved in the program really believe this? Does this claim help funding? |
#10
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X-43A flight delayed.
Herb Schaltegger wrote: jeff findley wrote: Again with the air-breathing, space launch vehicle religion. I'm wondering if the guys working on the program believe in the air-breathing, space launch vehicle religion, or if they're just using the religion to gain political (monetary) support for the program. Or it could be a relatively simple basic research/experimental program (hence the "X" designation) to help develop and better understand supersonic combustion as a means of air-breathing propulsion, regardless of what kind of vehicle a scramjet might propel. That *is* still part of NASA's basic mission. The only sensible applications for scramjets are military. Military R&D should be funded by the military, not by poor old NASA. The fact that the NASA PA PR machine hypes it as something else is hardly surprising, is it? Well, no. But it's still disappointing to see it. |
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