Australia's DSTO has been doing hypersonic experiments in Woomera, South Australia and Norway. In 2018, it plans to launch a glider with an air-breathing scramjet engine that will cruise at hypersonic speeds to travel about 200 kilometres in 30 seconds (mach 20).
“Hypersonics research is not new; it’s been conducted for 30 or 40 years. But the way the DSTO conducts its work is quite different in terms of experimentation. So we are effectively taking an IT approach. These experimentations would not be possible without IT systems. The whole payload is instrumented with IT systems,” Zelinsky said.
Sensors attached to the air-breathing engine measure the aerodynamic and thermodynamic properties in real time, which is gathered and analysed for insight into how the DSTO should shape its next experiment and to progressively advance the technology each time.
In 2011, the US prototype Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) achieved mach 20.
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