Hypersonic
      
 
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With the goal of extending the range and speed of aerospace vehicles while dramatically reducing the cost of access to space, ATS developed a flight test platform to acquire knowledge in the operation of ramjet and scramjet engines. Our unique approach provides a cost savings of 90-95%, bridging the gap between ground testing and traditional, high-cost flight testing. We achieve this remarkable savings by producing every element of our flight test platform in-house including motor housings, boost vehicles and propellants.

Funded by the Office of Naval Research, our low-cost flight test platform demands unique combinations of materials to achieve the remarkably low weight. Carbon filament composite body tubes, carbon epoxy fins, and fiberglass nose cones combine to create a new category of supersonic test-flight vehicles capable of reaching Mach 2.0+. Our ongoing process will evolve to ramjet testing and ultimately transition to scramjet operation in flight.

 

 
Videos
ATSVB0043 - Episode 16
Obama: A New Age in Space (Space 3.0) -
Lowering the cost of the first 50 miles of space flight (PART ONE)
Apr 15, 2010 - 09:31Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0043 - Episode 15
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ATSVB0041 - Episode 15
Reactions From Launch #3

Apr 6, 2010 - 02:42Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0043 - Episode 15
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ATSVB0030 - Episode 14
Looking Ahead to Launch #4

Jan 10, 2010 - 01:42Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0030 - Episode 14 Looking Ahead to Launch #4 Jan 10, 2010 - 01:42 We have two opportunities to either do the exact same launch which we probably should just to make sure we get we get the corkscrewing out of the vehicle, number one. So we will switch it up; so we have the forward and aft fins are interdigitated from the -- now they will make the Machs that we need to the launch tower. Run that same flight again, blow the shroud earlier, when we start the second stage motor, blow the shroud right there, and start separation earlier and then see where we can get, to what Mach number with just the second stage motor and the ramjet opened up. So that’s one scenario for first flight test, or we are pretty confident that the process that we have is going to work and if we interdigitate the aft and forward fins that we actually will eliminate the corkscrewing going on, and we know definitely that blowing that shroud earlier was the way to go. We can just say, hey, we know that we can do that, let’s get right to fueling this engine and throw a combustion chamber into the design that we have right now, throw some fuel on it and see what happens. Again, a cup full, maybe a little bit more than a cup full is all the fuel that we need. If you have any questions or comments or need help with your propulsion systems, please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 2 Minutes
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ATSVB0027 - Episode 13
Launch #3:
Successful RamJet Test
Jan 10, 2010 - 07:25Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0027 - Episode 13 Launch #3: Successful RamJet Test Jan 10, 2010 - 07:25 The first one went off and something happened to that first flight. As it took off, we lost communication with it. We could still -- we could see it, of course, going up but it didn’t take a little bit of a jog to one direction and went off at an angle on us, but I’d say may be 20 or so degrees from vertical which we usually launch everything vertical. They did separate, we saw the deployment of apogee shoots from the booster and the ramjet, unfortunately we weren’t able to recover anything, because our telemetry system had basically disconnected. This one, we did get the corkscrewing but everything stayed vertical, and you can see very clearly that the ramjet and the booster had separated, the second stage and the ramjet had ignited and this thing just took off. We weren’t totally aware of everything that happened until we got video feed on the actual separation which we have posted on our website as well, and you can see it clearly, the ramjet taking off from the booster. The other thing you see is the ramjet actually straightened up. We didn’t know how the separation of that would occur, but you can tell from the video that everything did separate at an angle of attack , but the ramjet just straightened right up. That was pretty good indication to us that the inlet that we had designed, we call it the King’s Crown Inlet, the ramjet that we had designed, but that’s our own design that we put on this kind of axisymmetric ramjet, and it really worked out well, because that was one in the key issues we didn’t know, if it was going to fly straight or not, and all of our CFD analysis was saying, hey, this thing will straighten up but it does go off angle of attack. But you just can’t really be sure until you actually flight test it. On the launch pad, when the main booster ignites, the electronics basically takes that as a baseline for the acceleration of the vehicle. The booster takes off, and it's about a four second, five second burn booster. It actually burnt for about four seconds, pushing to about Mach 1.1. Once we detected burn out, we start the second stage motor, and we were anticipating that motor to separate to two. What actually happened, as the data came back and the video came back, what actually happened was the second stage motor, didn’t have enough push in order to separate the two. So, we see the detection of the booster burn out and then what we get is a pressure rise inside the ramjet and that’s from the second stage motor actually starting up, and it sat there for exactly one second. We had indications on the ramjet that there was exhaust flowing between essentially on the outside of the vehicle from cracks between the two vehicles and also in the streams in the ramjet. So, we had a clear indication that that motor has started and was running for a second. As soon as the shroud blew, we had that rush of air that came in, and the second stage motor basically heated that up and compressed it and blew the two apart, and that’s when it actually separated. We had about 1.3 seconds of the second stage burning with that air coming through the ramjet, and that’s what gave us the 4Gs of acceleration and actually running through, mixing it two streams, with one of them being, exhaust from a rocket motor basically. I did get acceleration rates, right in that range about 3.5. So it all makes sense that we would get that much acceleration. It has everything to do with the weight of this vehicle; it's only 20 pounds. So the accelerometers on the vehicle really are very sensitive, as an indicator for the thrust measurement with the vehicle that’s light. That’s something different than you would see with ramjet tests or scramjet flight testing that are being conducted out there, because those vehicles are fairly heavy. If you have two vehicles and one of them weighs 2000 pounds and say the other one weighs 200 pounds and they are testing the same flow path, you get the same thrust. At the same flow path, the same drag, the lighter vehicle is going to have more -- there is going to be more indication from that lighter vehicle that you are getting basically some good numbers out of your flow path that you actually have. What we basically proved here was that the ramjet, we could flight test a ramjet flow path and something in this range of speed with the design that we have. We can do it cheaper. I mean it doesn’t -- I mean we did two in one way, and the flight vehicle themselves are cheap and it gives a opportunity to look at some of the flow paths in flight vehicle design. What we expect that we could get out of this vehicle about Mach 3. The design of the vehicle is good for about Mach 3. The thing about it, even being made out of fiberglass and carbon epoxy, the thing about it is we get into those high flight speeds very quickly because of the acceleration rate. When you turn everything off, you come back out of those high flight speeds very quickly, because the drag compared to the weight of the vehicle -- I mean the weight of the vehicle is nothing compared to the drag, so it's going to decelerate very quickly as well. We go into everything quick and we come out of it quick, and to do Mach 3 with a vehicle like this, I mean it will structurally it will take it, and the thermal side, we are going to be in there for a very short time, seconds. I mean we expected a separation at about Mach 1.3, 1.4. We can get to Mach 3 with this vehicle in about four seconds. We get in and out. So if you are saying, hey Mach 2 is going to be the high side in the temperature capability for aluminum, fiberglass, carbon epoxy or whatever, we can get through Mach 2 to Mach 3 and back down again before anything ever happens to this vehicle. Total Duration: 7 Minutes
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ATSVB0026 - Episode 12
Launch #3:
Prelaunch Objectives
Jan 10, 2010 - 02:13Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0026 - Episode 12 Launch #3: Preflight Objectives Jan 10, 2010 - 02:13 Pre November launch, we are working at doing our final demonstration of a ramjet flight test. There was an unfueled ramjet. We did put a second stage motor on the ramjet and that was mainly for the separation process, but what actually happened during flight was it was totally different than what we anticipated initially, but it all came out good. The sequence of advance was basically the booster pushing, the booster in the ramjet getting pushed up to speed, and we're expecting about Mach 1.4, 1.3. We ignite a second stage motor that's located inside the ramjet and that was really to help push the two vehicles apart or push the ramjet away from the booster. The booster has a lot more mass to it. So we wanted to get the ramjet away from it before we blow the shroud that was covering up the inlet to the ramjet. But then once we blow the ramjet, the second stage motor is going to burn out. We were just looking to get some flow path numbers in terms of pressures and stuff, and to make sure that the ramjet was going to fly correctly, but what actually happened was a little bit different to it. So we had a perfect day for this launch. It's actually little bit more complex than the last because all of our electronics now were located on the ramjet itself. So we had a separation basically between the ramjet and the booster, where we always had electronics on the booster side. So now we switched that into the ramjet, because we want to grab everything from the ramjet as this flying through the -- We go with two vehicles and that's basically to give this two tries. We still have enough time and a day to do a second launch. If they both work good which they have been working good on the other launches, then we have one of them that's basically a backup for the other one. If we have change something little in the controls or whatever, then we have another vehicle to do that with on the second shot. And this was actually the case in this flight. If you have any question or comments or you need help with your propulsion systems, please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 2 Minutes
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ATSVB0015 - Episode 11
Launch #3:
(Flight Tests 5&6)
Sep 17, 2009 - 03:23Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0015 - Episode 11 Launch #3: (Flight Tests 5&6) Sep 17, 2009 - 03:23 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. Well, in the next launch that we have planned, the third one, we made changes to the test article vehicle. It's now more stable. We are going to be boosting this one to Mach 1.5, before separation. So we had all the electronics and procedures done, I think down path from the second launch that we conducted. Now, it's just getting the test article to fly correctly, and basically that's making the vehicle the test article itself, more stable when it's flying by itself, as well as putting a second stage smaller solid propellant rocket motor in that. So that will help push the vehicle away from the booster and to try and eliminate the separation charge that we did in the second launch, which tend to hose our electronics. So we won't have such a drastic increase in the g-loading on the electronics or the other frame of the vehicle itself. So we reduced the g-acceleration on the test article and then this booster should also fly much more stable or the test article fly much more stable with the second stage booster in it. Male Speaker: Is the rocket built now? Karl V. Hoose: No, it's in fabrication right now. Everything is being made out of again, out of composite materials either fiberglass, reinforced or a carbon epoxy, all commercially available materials. The dummy ramjet test article is being fabricated from fiberglass and carbon epoxy. So they are all being fabricated right now. Hopefully, we'll be testing by the end of October. It'll be a full size of what the ramjet, burning ramjet would be. Male Speaker: Now why are you doing non-burning at this stage? Karl V. Hoose: Just because burning is going to add another level of complexity, because we'll have to put on board and then control systems, ignition system for all that, get everything, basically controlled properly. So it adds more expense, more cost to the initial flight test, when we haven't really proved out whether or not we can actually get it to that speed and then have the air flowing through the engine correctly before we actually inject fuel and ignite it. Not to mention that the combustor doesn’t have to sustain the high temperatures in a non-burning flight, as opposed to a burning flight. So even though, we might only do it for a couple of seconds. So we are trying to reduce the complexity in every step, because the flight test are cheap enough, so we'll just take a step at a time and walk up to where we need to be. If you have any questions or comments or need help with your propulsion systems, please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 3 Minutes
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ATSVB0014 - Episode 10
Launch #2:
(Flight Tests 3&4)
Sep 17, 2009 - 02:07Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0014 - Episode 10 Launch #2: (Flight Tests 3&4) Sep 17, 2009 - 02:07 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. Going into two flight test or Launch 2, which was flight test three and four, they were both -- Male Speaker: When did that happen, by the way? Karl V. Hoose: That happened three months after our first launch. We took a step back and we were doing subsonic flight tests, but we were separating basically a test article. So we were able to use the same booster vehicles that we used in Flight Tests 1 and 2 which saved us some money there as well. But basically what we did was trying to get the process down of detecting booster burn out and then separation of the booster from the test article. Those two flight tests we changed a little bit after the first flight test, we had a 0 delay between booster burn out and separation, and we put about a two second delay in the second test because of some issue that we had with the first one possibly hitting, the booster hitting the test article because it was over taking it after separation, and we put a little bit bigger punch in the separation charge. So the second one -- both of them separated good but after a second -- and that was kind of expected. Both of them separated really well. The separation was straight, but then the test article started to tumble because its stability was just on the line. But we knew that going into; it was just cheaper to try it and test it. We were really looking to the separation process, and all that seem to work well. If you have any questions or comments or need help with your propulsion systems please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 2 Minutes
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ATSVB0009 - Episode 9
Launch #1:
(Flight Tests 1&2)
Sep 17, 2009 - 02:41Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0009 - Episode 9 Launch #1: (Flight Tests 1&2) Sep 17, 2009 - 02:41 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. With flight test one, or the first two flight tests I should say the first launch, basically what we did was, we're demonstrating flight to Mach 1.5. So we designed a vehicle, 12-foot long vehicle six inches diameter with our own motor, pushing it to Mach 1.5, where we have basically checking the telemetry system. The issues with going through the speed of sound, making sure we have deployment of our recovery system both at apogee and then the dual deployment at 1000 feet above the ground in locating, GPS locating. So that was really to prove that our vehicle could withstand the flight speeds, the pressures of flight conditions at Mach 1.5 at a fairly low altitude. We didn't have much of any problems with both flight tests hit the estimated marks right on target. We hit Mach 1.52 and 1.54 I think. Our estimates are 1.50. Altitude was right on target. The deployment systems we had, dual deployment again, for both systems we had some wind conditions about 3,000 and 9,000 feet that were a little bit higher than what we expected. The first flight that we did, we had -- our recovery was about 2.3 miles away from where we launched, that was a little bit longer than we expected. But what we did is, we adjusted our drogue shoot, basically the deployment at apogee. We adjusted that and also the angle that we launched and the second one ended up 0.7 miles away. So we kind of got a feel for wind conditions in the atmosphere to in order to recover this thing as easy as possible. So everything with both of those flight tests went off pretty much picture-perfect. If you have any questions or comments or need help with your propulsion systems, please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 3 Minutes
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ATSVB0008 - Episode 8
ATS Flight Test Program: Objectives

Sep 17, 2009 - 02:35Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0008 - Episode 8 ATS Flight Test Program: Objectives Sep 17, 2009 - 02:35 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. This test program that we started in this phase is basically for four different flights and we test two vehicles at each flight. So there are eight different flight tests. In the first two flight tests we are running -- we just want to demonstrate getting to supersonic speed with our vehicle and boost to make sure everything holds up, the recovery system, telemetry, that whole nine yards. The second one was basically demonstrating separation of a test article. We did this at subsonic flight speeds, two flights there. The third one will push that up to supersonic speed into separation of a test article and in the fourth flight it will be the boost to supersonic speeds again. The separation of test article along with uncovering the shroud so that we have flow through a Ramjet, basically a non-fueled Ramjet flight test, and there will be two flights there. So far in the program we've demonstrated all the electronics, what we need in order to carry out a flight test, the design and fabrication techniques for the booster vehicle as well as the test article, separation process for the test article and booster during flight, demonstrated subsonically, we will be testing it next in supersonic flight test. Then by the end of the program we will have separated essentially a non-burning Ramjet at flight speed and we will be ready for the next step which will be adding fuel to the mix and running the Ramjet after separation. And that of course open up basically the range for flight testing of a fully operational Ramjet and we’ll just walk our way up in speed, in altitude and hit the hypersonic regime. If you have any questions or comments or you need help with you propulsion systems, please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 3 Minutes
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ATSVB0007 - Episode 7
Interest: ONR Flight Testing Under 100k

Sep 17, 2009 - 06:30Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0007 - Episode 7 Interest: ONR Flight Testing Under 100k Sep 17, 2009 - 06:30 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. The folks at office in Naval Research were very interested and because they wanted to get the flight testing done under $100,000 a shot. You are not going to do with that with traditional flight testing, it just isn’t going to happen. It's not on the cards, so you have to look at some alternative avenues. When we brought this approach to them, they were definitely interested but they were holding back their enthusiasm a bit because they look it as more hobby than something that’s actually real, that they could really use, and I think it's because it had the amateur rocketry tag to it, but the FAA will tell you that they even increased their restrictions, they kind of decreased the limitations that they had on it in order to open the field up for designers and engineers in order to produce technology that was related to aviation and propulsion. And so we were just jumping all over that. We received about $750,000 to continue this up to applied speeds of Mach 1.5 with separation of a test article. So we were just doing a full vehicle flight prior, now we were going to flight test to Mach 1.5, demonstrate separation of the booster from the Flight Test Article or the Ramjet in this case, and then have a shroud deployment and then just demonstrate flow through the Ramjet, and it's really to demonstrate this separation, everything starts or goes right correctly, in order to get to establish a flow through the engine, just prior to fuel injection in ignition. We have planned eight total flight tests in that $750,000 program to get up to that point to demonstrate that piece of it. A grand and it's not going to have all the bells and whistles that they would have in the traditional flight testing, but you don’t need that. In order to conduct some of these flight tests, may be you are looking at a small item in that, and basically you say starting these engines, where you have flight tests that were conducted by ATK, not too long ago, where stripped the guidance systems off this vehicle but used a conventional booster. They flight tested at Wallops Island, traditional place, that’s going to be expensive anyways, but it was a ground boosted free flight Scramjet test at Mach 5.5. But they had issues with the engines starting once they jettisoned the booster, and they are ready to start the engine, they kept the fuel on, and the flow -- the inlet essentially unstarted which basically throws a high-pressure up on the nose of the vehicle and basically the flow going through the engine really decreases, and it's just not operating correctly. So it wasn’t successful, I am sure they learned a lot of things about the flight test and what they did, but the engine itself was never really tested. And the same kind of thing happened in the HyFly program done by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research which -- that program has spent over a $100 million already, they had two flight tests and they had issues with both flight tests. The first one was a software issue they had where they basically dropped the vehicle from a fighter, they boosted it up to speed, they separated the booster. They uncovered the inlet to the engine, but then the first one, they didn’t get any burning. In the second one, they got some burning, but they had an issue on the second flight with the Fuel Delivery System. So that scrubbed everything as well. So how much do they really learn? They understood that their working in the process is in order to get up to flight testing. They have a third flight test planned now, because they got additional moneys, but may be something is going to crop up in that as well. You have to understand, you are not going to hit everything dead-on in the first few tests. May be you will but you are going to throw a lot of money into it. And so you will learn things as you go along in the process, and so you have to somehow make that cheaper. And if you could run these things just short duration initially which all these problems that they’ve had so far, when they have a problem with the flight tests, it's usually within seconds after everything runs. So why not do a short duration? Why not run this thing for two seconds? Just to make sure in those two seconds, everything is running right. You’ve got your boost, you’ve got your separation, you have the deployment of the shroud, over the inlet you initialize a flow going through the engine, you inject fuel, you get ignition, everything works. It starts to operate for two-three seconds. We get to that point and say, “Hey! Success!” Now we can do a few things with the design that we’ve learned in that short duration test and then move on to a longer duration test which would be the flight test. So really connecting these short duration flight tests really helps mitigate the risk in the traditional flight tests. So again the stepping stone in the design process. If you have any questions or comments, or need help with your propulsion systems, please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 6 Minutes
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ATSVB0006 - Episode 6
Current Initiatives

Sep 17, 2009 - 01:11Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0006 - Episode 6 Current Initiatives Sep 17, 2009 - 01:11 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. Department of Defense probably has the best -- I would say the biggest need right now, because they do need to really stretch their arm out, in terms of being able to address time curricula strikes in a short amount of time at very long distances, and you are just not going to do with rocket propulsion. You can do it with cruise missiles, they can get quite a distance with those, but they are much slower. So if you are talking 600-700 nautical miles away, you are going to be waiting for a while for this thing to show up, and if you are running six or seven times the speed of sound, then you are going to decrease the time to target quite a bit. If you are talking mobile launchers or something else they are mobile, they are going to be moving in minutes, and so that's about all you have. If you have any questions or comments or need help with your propulsion systems please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 1 Minute
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ATSVB0005 - Episode 5
ATS: Initial Involvement

Sep 17, 2009 - 04:25Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0005 - Episode 5 ATS: Initial Involvement Sep 17, 2009 - 04:25 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. Well, we were involved in Scramjet testing ground facilities for the army, and I have a history back to the NASA program in the mid 80’s when I just started for Scramjet/Ramjet engines, testing them in ground facilities with design. Where we got involved, we were doing some Scramjet work for the army, we focused in on fuel injectors and flame holding for Mach 10 flight conditions and we actually designed system for the Hyper-X like vehicle, and we conducted tests and everything was working out well, but being involved in that program and understanding what was going on with the planning of flight test for Hyper-X and some of the other programs that came up and went down, and the expense. We started looking at and knowing a lot of the money was basically going away, because as these programs were coming up or going down, there was always a concern about the dollar amount. We were also working some atmospheric interceptor technology with Divert and Attitude Control Thrusters which are basically variable thrust rocket motors. And so we had our hands and solid propellant at the time and to us we started thinking about boosting test articles up with solid propellant rocket motors, to super-sonic speeds. And so we had this idea and then we went -- I actually found out that there was some high power rocketry 01:52 up in the down East Maine up in Cherryfield, in the Blueberry fields they were just testing these high-power rockets. And so, I went and visited one of their launches and seen the open space, the field, and they had some good size rockets there, and that were going 8000 or 9000 feet. So just looking at that, the wheel started turning in my mind, of what we could do and knowing we can make our own vehicle, we have the engineers, the designers to put everything together, why not try it. So we went up and checked things out. Male Speaker: This one could fire.Karl V. Hoose: No. What we’ve done, we’ve made several of these, and basically what we do is we go through hydro-static pressure testing up to 3200 PSI and then we fire them which in between 1600 and 2200 PSI, and then we hydrostatically pressure-test them again. And they are all good, we did several of those, but this is a unique design to us. Male Speaker: I would keep my knowledge up, 24000, the Bangore winds at 300 degrees, 38 knots, and the outside air temperature is -34 centigrade. Karl V. Hoose: In electronics perspective the engine rocket motor, the vehicle, just trying to get comfortable with the flight and some of the off-the-shelf components that you can use for telemetry GPS tracking, the recovery systems, tool deployment recovery. It all started to come together, and it just seemed viable that hey, we can just boost these things up to speed and if there is no speed limit there. And it looked like we could do it for very low cost, and so that’s what the idea was formed and we just need to continue pushing that or kicking that can down the road, but we’ve already been over the speed of sound. If you have any questions or comments, or need help with your propulsion systems, please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 4 Minutes
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ATSVB0004 - Episode 4
Traditional Flight Testing

Sep 17, 2009 - 03:21Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0004 - Episode 4 Traditional Flight Testing Sep 17, 2009 - 03:21 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. In the traditional flight testing techniques that are being used in most of the programs now; I should see any of them that are pulling together flight tests, they are going to use, if they are boosting to supersonic speeds, which all of them are boosting, that I know of. They are basically looking to operate these hypersonic air-breathing propulsion systems at say Mach 3.5, starting at Mach 3.5 for the high-flight programming, running up to about Mach 6. Use a booster in order to get it to speed, the boosters are expensive. They are dropping this thing off of Fighter Jet. They want to run five-six minutes at a time and they basically want to boost that scramjet engine from Mach 3.5 up to Mach 5, Mach 6 on hydrocarbon fuels. And so the expense is in basically setting up, knowing that they are not going to be able to do a whole lot of tests, they want to grab as much information as possible. And so they have a lot of system censors and everything else on board this vehicle. They also need a guidance system on these vehicles because they are going to be basically cruising at what they hope is a single altitude. And telemetry data back to plains basis, whatever in order to grab everything before this thing plunges in the ocean and they don't recover it. And that's one of the downsides too, because they don't get to see physically what happened to the engine of the vehicle as it's running through space. So all they have is these censors. But the control systems for guidance, the control systems on the vehicle in order to do its maneuvers to stay at altitude, all that brings in a lot of people, a lot more time, reliability cost, the whole nine yards, the guidance systems are very expensive, guidance and control systems for these vehicles are very expensive. Same thing with the Hyper-X vehicle and they’ll have the X-51 that's being done with the air force, which that one again will be dropped from a plane and boosted to, I believe Mach 4 where we’d travel, accelerate up to about Mach 6. Again a cruiser but all the guidance and control systems are on that vehicle as well. It’s a unique design, they want to make sure that they grab as much data as they can before this thing goes in the ocean. So that's the expensive part. That really, the reliability is, the risk goes up with all those systems and they want to grab as much data as they can. If you have any question or comments, or need help with your propulsion systems, please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 3 Minutes
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ATSVB0003 - Episode 3
The Importance & Complexity of Flight
Testing
Sep 17, 2009 - 02:29Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0003 - Episode 3 The Importance & Complexity of Flight Testing Sep 17, 2009 - 02:29 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. The big thing with scramjets and ramjets in testing or in the development, is that you have to basically, get the vehicle up to flight speed and you can do it on ground test facilities, but you can't simulate all the conditions; the flight speed, altitude, you can get those for the most part. But then, in a ground facility you are putting a lot of energy into the air and you are moving the air by the vehicle or the engine. In flight, you are moving the engine and the vehicle through the air. And so, in the ground test facility, you have to put the energy in the air in order to get those speed differences, where in flight you are putting it into the vehicle. And when you put that much energy into the air, you change its chemical makeup for the most part, especially when you get up around seven or so times, the speed of sound and when that happens, then combustion conditions and everything else are totally different than what you would have in flight. So you don't get a consistent simulation in ground facilities is what you get in flight. So you have to flight test, there is no way around it in the bottom line, where you actually end up developing it. And right now, rockets you can test statically in a stand and traditional piston engines you do the same thing, where you can get your fingers right in and then you can understand what's going on. But for ramjets and scramjets it's different. You have to flight test at some point to really understand what's going on. So that combined with the complications of sensors and being able to measure what's going on in flight, and having the vehicle and the engine survive the environment, which once you start getting up around six or five, six times, the speed of sound in the scramjet operating range, then thermal effects start getting very complicated, and they are not all worked out, where the vehicle, the structure will hold up for a short amount of time where it's not going to hold up at all. So those things make the flight testing very complex. If you have any questions or comments or you need help with your propulsion systems. Please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 2 Minutes
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ATSVB0002 - Episode 2
Motives & Advantages of Hypersonic Airbreathing Propulsion
Sep 17, 2009 - 02:12Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0002 - Episode 2 Motives & Advantages of Hypersonic Airbreathing Propulsion Sep 17, 2009 - 02:12 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. Well, if you look at NASA's interest that would be more on low cost access to space, because basically sending equipment, people whatever out into low earth orbit, they used rockets right now. And rockets are -- they are very inefficient. It's the only way that we can get there right now, but they are very inefficient when it comes to the amount of energy that you put into it to basically what you get out. So air-breathing hypersonic propulsion would allow, a basically taking off from a runway or a rocket boost up to a Scramjet takeover speed where then you would use just fuel, use the oxygen in the air in the atmosphere in order to help you access space at that point which the price of that could come down substantially 10-20 folds. So there is a big drive there from the NASA standpoint. From the military standpoint, it's all about getting from point A to point B in a short amount of time and flying at very high speeds about Mach 5, Mach 6, Mach 7. You can really kind of extend your range in force protection and when you're taking about addressing time-critical targets, fast speed for long distances makes all the difference in the world and rocket just won't get there. The vehicle would be way too big. So you're talking about scaling the vehicle down quite a bit and getting more basically efficiency out of what you're carrying on board this vehicle to reach targets in a very short amount of time and basically greater distances. If you have any question or comments or you need help with your propulsion systems, please feel free to contact us. Total Duration: 2 Minutes
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ATSVB0001 - Episode 1
Air Breathing Propulsion:
History & Theory
Sep 17, 2009 - 02:30Karl V. Hoose: ATSVB0001 - Episode 1 Air Breathing Propulsion: History & Theory Sep 17, 2009 - 02:30 For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. The air-breathing Ramjet engines started way back in the 1910’s basically, and the Germans were really the ones who started this up, and a Ramjet is basically unlike a jet engine of today that has a compressor and turbine in it as you start flying fast enough and typically above the speed of sound. The vehicles flying so fast, the air is basically compressed into the intake, so you don’t need a compressor. If you don’t need a compressor, you don’t need a turbine. And basically what you have is a duct, and that’s essentially a Ramjet. You just have a duct, the configuration of a duct is so that you can compress the air going into the inlet, inject fuel and basically blow the products out of the exhaust or nozzle of the engine to produce thrust. And taking up a step above supersonic once you hit about Mach 5, you are talking hypersonic regime and this is where Ramjets as you get going flying faster and faster, once you get up around Mach 5, Mach 6 to compress that flow down to subsonic speeds, the temperature is quite high, the static temperature of the air. So typically what you want to do is have the flow running supersonic through the engine, which will bring the temperature down where you can add fuel and then continue to produce thrust. And the high end of that kind of mode of operation for the Ramjet which is called Supersonic Combustion Ramjet or Scramjet is still unproven, but NASA had actually flight tested a Scramjet up to Mach 10 so far. So that’s where the bar is set right now. But we know that there is higher capability in speed than Mach 10, but it still has yet to be proven. If you have any questions or comments or need help with your propulsion systems please feel free to contact us. For Applied Thermal Sciences video blog, my name is Karl Hoose. Total Duration: 2 Minutes
Videos
download iconHypersonic - White Paper
Low Cost Ramjet/Scramjet Flight Testing
for Time Critical Strike Weapons Development
PDF - 180 KB
  
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