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The aviation and space press buzzed last week with the news that NASA had quietly moved its two long-grounded X-34 space planes from open storage at the space agency's Dryden center - located on Edwards Air Force Base in California - to a test pilot school in the Mojave Desert. At the desert facility, the mid-'90s-vintage, robotic X-34s would be inspected to determine if they were capable of flying again. It seemed that NASA was eying a dramatic return to the business of fast, cheap space access using a reusable, airplane-style vehicle - something the Air Force has enthusiastically embraced...

A recent United States Air Force scramjet test has hinted at a future where hypersonic vehicles streak through the sky at many times the speed of sound around the world, and perhaps even open up access to space. The experimental X-51A Waverider used a rocket booster and an air-breathing scramjet to reach a speed of Mach 5 and achieve the longest hypersonic flight ever powered by such an engine on May 26. That technology might not only deliver cargo quickly to different parts of the globe, but could also transform the space industry and spawn true space planes that take...

The U.S. Air Force is gearing up for the first of four planned test flights of a hypersonic aircraft designed to operate for much longer durations and cover far greater distances than previous platforms of its type. The maiden flight of the X-51 Waverider aircraft — the first U.S. hypersonic vehicle to fly in six years — is scheduled to take place later in March. Boeing Defense, Space & Security Systems of St. Louis has been developing the aircraft since 2003 on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The missile-shaped X-51 will be...

The U.S. Air Force is gearing up for the first of four planned test flights of a hypersonic aircraft designed to operate for much longer durations and cover far greater distances than previous platforms of its type. The maiden flight of the X-51 Waverider aircraft — the first U.S. hypersonic vehicle to fly in six years — is scheduled to take place later in March. Boeing Defense, Space & Security Systems of St. Louis has been developing the aircraft since 2003 on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The missile-shaped X-51 will be...

In a flight test reminiscent of the early days of the historic X-15 program 50 years earlier, the X-51A Waverider was carried aloft for the first time over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 9 by an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52H Stratofortress. The "captive carry" test was a key milestone in preparation for the X-51 to light its supersonic combustion ramjet engine and propel the WaverRider at hypersonic speed for about 5 minutes, before plunging into the Pacific Ocean. That flight test is currently planned in about two months, said Charlie Brink, X-51A program manager with the...

Those of us in flight test at California’s Edwards Air Force Base in 1959 accused the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter production engineers of turning the designer’s drawings upside down. The wings of most aircraft employed dihedral—they were set at a slightly upward angle—but the F-104’s wings angled in the opposite direction; the horizontal stabilizer and elevator sat atop the vertical stabilizer instead of below it; and the ejection seat fired down instead of up.We could recover from the spin that resulted from the aircraft pitching up uncontrollably when it stalled,which was due to the T-tail configuration, but most pilots who used...

The US Air Force Research Laboratory's X-51A WaveRider scramjet engine demonstrator completed its first captive-carry flight under the wing of its B-52H mothership from Edwards AFB on Dec. 9. The first free flight is planned for mid-February. The B-52 climbed to the planned launch altitude of 50,000ft during a 1.4h flight that checked out systems and telemetry. The next flight, planned for mid-January, will be a full dress-rehearsal for the first of four planned X-51A hypersonic test flights. The Boeing-built X-51A will be released at 50,000ft over the Pacific and accelerated to Mach 4.5 by a solid rocket booster. The...

It's been a long wait—in some ways, more than 50 years—but in April 2010, the U.S. Air Force is scheduled to launch an Atlas V booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the newest U.S. spacecraft, the unmanned X-37, to orbit. The X-37 embodies the Air Force's desire for an operational spaceplane, a wish that dates to the 1950s, the era of the rocket-powered X-15 and X-20. In other ways, though, the X-37 will be picking up where another U.S. spaceplane, NASA's space shuttle, leaves off.

You would think that an unpiloted space plane built to rocket spaceward from Florida atop an Atlas booster, circle the planet for an extended time, then land on autopilot on a California runway would be big news. But for the U.S. Air Force X-37B project — seemingly, mum's the word. There is an air of vagueness regarding next year's Atlas Evolved Expendable launch of the unpiloted, reusable military space plane. The X-37B will be cocooned within the Atlas rocket's launch shroud — a ride that's far from cheap. While the launch range approval is still forthcoming, SPACE.com has learned that...