DARPA Launches HTV-2, World's Fastest Plane?
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, launched an unmanned hypersonic glider in an attempt to fly at the incredible speed of Mach 20, on Thursday August 12. This is the second test mission for the global strike weapons prototype.
The Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle-2 (HTV-2), attached to a Minotaur 4 rocket, was fired off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 7:45 a.m.
“It’s time to conduct another flight test to validate our assumptions and gain further insight into extremely high Mach regimes that we cannot fully replicate on the ground,” Air Force Maj. Chris Schulz, the HTV-2 program manager said in a statement.
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DARPA reported that the HTV-2 was successfully launched on its course and sending data. However, about twenty minutes later the agency tweeted that it had lost connection with the vehicle.
“Downrange assets did not reacquire tracking or telemetry,” DARPA wrote on its Twitter Feed.
The aircraft was designed to fly at 13,000 mph or Mach 20, heading south and west before flying into the ocean. The Hypersonic Test Vehicle was made to reach suborbital space, re-enter Earth’s atmosphere – separating from its booster and moving through the air at Mach 20, before purposely diving into the ocean.
According to DARPA officials, during today’s mission the vehicle was expected to us rocket thrusters to help keep its course, as it glided through the atmosphere. HTV-2 was designed to perform maneuvers to test aerodynamic performance.
Moving at twenty times the speed of sound, the vehicle could fly from New York City to Los Angeles in twelve minutes, said DARPA officials.
The U.S. military uses the HTV-2 to develop technology that can respond to threats moving at Mach 20 or greater speeds. The idea behind this initiative is to reach any part of the world in an hour.
DARPA launched the first HTV-2 on April 22, 2010. Officials said it returned nine minutes of data, including 139 seconds of aerodynamic data, moving at speeds between 17 and 22 times the speed of sound.
