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The quest for sustainable hypersonic flight
Research Project
- Start Date:
- 24 March, 2009
- Project Status:
- Active
Hypersonics is the study of flight at speeds greater than Mach 5, or more than five times the speed of sound.
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- Hypersonic flight
The potential Defence and civilian applications of hypersonic flight are far reaching. Not only will hypersonic flight dramatically reduce the flight time between any two points on the globe, it will make the deployment of satellites cheaper and easier, and pave the way for cost effective flights into space.
DSTO has entered into a partnership with the United States Air Force, the University of Queensland, Boeing and BAE Systems to develop the technologies needed for sustained flight at Mach 8. As part of this project, DSTO is playing a lead role in applying the technology to air breathing “scramjet” (supersonic combustion ram jet) engines.