An important development in ISRO’s Air Breathing Propulsion Project (ABPP) occurred on August 28, 2016, which was the successful flight testing of its Scramjet.
This first experimental mission of ISRO’s Scramjet Engine towards the realisation of an Air Breathing Propulsion System was successfully conducted from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota.
After a smooth countdown of 12 hours, the solid rocket booster carrying the Scramjet Engines lifted off at 0600 hrs (6:00 am) IST. The important flight events, namely, burn out of booster rocket stage, ignition of second stage solid rocket, functioning of Scramjet engines for 5 seconds followed by burn out of the second stage took place exactly as planned.
After a flight of about 300 seconds, the vehicle touched down in the Bay of Bengal, approximately 320 km from Sriharikota. The vehicle was successfully tracked during its flight from the ground stations at Sriharikota.
With this flight, critical technologies such as ignition of air breathing engines at supersonic speed, holding the flame at supersonic speed, air intake mechanism and fuel injection systems have been successfully demonstrated. The Scramjet engine designed by ISRO uses Hydrogen as fuel and the Oxygen from the atmospheric air as the oxidiser. The August 28 test was the maiden short duration experimental test of ISRO’s Scramjet engine with a hypersonic flight at Mach 6. ISRO’s Advanced Technology Vehicle (ATV), which is an advanced sounding rocket, was the solid rocket booster used for this recent test of Scramjet engines at supersonic conditions. ATV carrying Scramjet engines weighed 3277 kg at lift-off.
Long before hitching a ride to the moon aboard Apollo 11, then US Air Force test pilot Neil Armstrong was zipping around in a rocket-powered North American X-15, which to this day remains the fastest manned, winged aircraft ever built. That flight record of Mach 6.72 or 7,274km/h was set by pilot William “Pete” Knight in 1967.
Now, some 59 years later, America still hasn’t fully realised the promise that experimental flight vehicle held for military operations.
Despite many breakthroughs in fields of hypersonic propulsion and high-temperature materials, the air force doesn’t imagine an affordable and operationally relevant surveillance and strike aircraft coming online until the late 2030s.
The storied Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird flew at Mach 3.2, or three times the speed of sound, which is now short of what the air force says it needs to outpace modern interceptors.
Instead, the air branch is pushing hypersonic missiles, powered by the type of air-breathing scramjet engine that propelled the and rocket-boosted Boeing X-51 WaveRider in 2013. Engineless boost-glide hypersonic weapon concepts are also being considered.
China’s success in flying a scramjet-powered hypersonic aircraft, trailing the U.S. by no more than a few years, reveals that its engineers have overcome severe cooling problems first mentioned five years ago. The successful test, announced in October, followed the January 2014 flight of a Chinese hypersonic glider.
The China Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics says the engine of the aircraft, which must have been unmanned and probably quite small, is the world’s first kerosene-burning scramjet with regenerative cooling. This is at odds with the Boeing X-51A WaveRider, in which fuel cooled the engine while being heated to improve combustion, flown in the U.S in 2010 and again in 2013.
The society announced the Chinese success to recognize the achievements of the project leader, Wang Zhenguo. A professor at the National University of Defense Technology, Wang led the research and development team for more than 20 years, from concept to planning and system integration. This involved “development and production in a nationally important project for a certain type of hypersonic aircraft,” the society says. Wang, referred to as the chief designer, was also in charge of flight testing.
As a result, China has become only the second country, behind the U.S., to independently fly such an aircraft, the society says. Chinese media quoted the society as making these statements in a report on its award to Wang.
