NASA has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin to study the feasibility of building a hypersonic propulsion system for a concept intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft dubbed the SR-72 using existing turbine engine technologies.
The $892,292 contract “provides for a parametric design study to establish the viability of a turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) propulsion system consisting of integrating several combinations of near-term turbine engine solutions and a very low Mach ignition Dual Mode RamJet (DMRJ) in the SR-72 vehicle concept,” the award document says.
A spokeswoman for Lockheed’s Skunk Works development laboratory declined to comment on the contract award.
The SR-72 is envisioned as an unmanned, reusable hypersonic ISR and strike aircraft capable of Mach 6.0 flight, or nearly double the speed of its predecessor, the SR-71 Blackbird.
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