A rocket which scientists hope may ultimately revolutionise commercial aviation was launched at nearly eight times the speed of sound in the Australian outback north of here Tuesday.
The historic maiden flight of the University of Queensland’s hypersonic air-breathing scramjet-powered rocket took it 300 kilometres into the sky above South Australia’s Woomera rocket base.
Project officials said the university’s Centre for Hypersonics launched two Terrier Orion Mk-70 rockets fitted with a hypersonic, air-breathing engine known as a scramjet at 11:37 am (0207 GMT).
The flight experiment itself took place within the last five seconds before the engine returned to earth with a bang.
University of Queensland researchers said they were receiving data from the rocket, but they were unable yet to say whether the experiment had been a complete success.
The scramjet raises the possibility of Sydney to London flights eventually taking just two hours.
However, it is more likely to revolutionise the launch of small space payloads, such as communications satellites, by substantially lowering costs as the oxygen-breathing capabilities mean the engines do not need to carry most of their own propellant.
The Royal Australian Air Force aircraft research and development unit assisted in the project.
A test of the scramjet rocket failed last October after it veered off course.
A test flight of a Japanese supersonic jet model ended up in a ball of flames at the rocket range two weeks ago.
A member of the project team, Myles Frost, said on Tuesday that the rocket booster was at fault in that test, rather than the engine itself.
”The actual attempt last year, we learnt a lot of lessons from that, and I think we’ll have a much higher level of success this time,” he told ABC radio before the launching. – Sapa-AFP