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From: NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 16:59:10 -0500 (EST)
Fwd Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 09:00:09 -0500
Subject: NASA Selects MicroCraft, Inc. to Fabricate

Don Nolan-Proxmire
Headquarters, Washington, DC                 March 24, 1997
(Phone:  202/358-1983)

Keith Henry
Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA
(Phone:  757/864-6120)

Fred Brown
Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA
(Phone:  805/258-2663)

Lowell Keel
MicroCraft, Inc. Tullahoma, TN
(Phone:  615/455-2617 x235)


RELEASE:  97-53

NASA SELECTS MICROCRAFT, INC. TEAM
TO FABRICATE HYPERSONIC VEHICLES

     NASA has selected a team led by MicroCraft, Inc., Tullahoma,
TN, to fabricate a series of small, unpiloted experimental
vehicles that will fly up to ten times the speed of sound.  The
five-year project, known as Hyper-X, will demonstrate hypersonic
propulsion technologies.

     When the Hyper-X flies, it will be the first time a non-
rocket engine has powered a vehicle in flight at hypersonic speeds
-- speeds above Mach 5, equivalent to about one mile per second or
approximately 3,600 miles per hour at sea level.  A booster rocket
will carry each experimental vehicle to its flight-test speed and
altitude, where it will be launched to fly under its own power.

     The cost-plus-incentive fee contract is worth an estimated
$33.4 million over the next 55 months.  It specifies that the
first of four Hyper-X vehicles is to be delivered in time for the
first scheduled flight early in fiscal year 1999.

     Team members working with MicroCraft will be Boeing North
American, Inc., Seal Beach, CA; GASL, Inc., Ronkonkoma, NY; and
Accurate Automation Corp., Chattanooga, TN.

     The Hyper-X project is conducted jointly by the Langley
Research Center, Hampton, VA, and the Dryden Flight Research
Center, Edwards, CA.  Langley will manage the overall project
while Dryden will conduct the flight tests.

     "We're embarking on an ambitious series of Hyper-X flights to
expand the boundaries of aeronautics and develop new technologies
for space access," said Daniel S. Goldin, NASA Administrator.
"Most impressively, these flights will begin less than two years
from now.  Under old ways of doing business it might have taken
ten years to reach flight tests."

     MicroCraft will be responsible for fabrication and flight-
test support.  This will include not only the four research
vehicles but also one research vehicle-to-booster adapter for
mating of the research vehicles to the nose of an expendable
booster rocket.  Each vehicle will be approximately 12 feet long
with a wing span of about five feet.

     "We are ready to prove this technology -- to be the first to
fly an air-breathing vehicle at hypersonic speeds," said NASA
Langley's Vince Rausch, the Hyper-X project manager.

     Program managers plan to demonstrate hydrogen-powered, "air-
breathing" propulsion systems that could ultimately be applied in
vehicle types ranging from hypersonic aircraft to reusable space
launchers.

     A rocket carries its own oxygen for combustion. An air-
breathing vehicle, the experimental Hyper-X, will burn oxygen in
the air scooped from the atmosphere. Because of this, air-
breathing hypersonic vehicles should carry more payload and/or
offer longer range than equivalent rocket-powered systems.

     Four flights are planned -- one each at Mach 5 and 7 and two
at Mach 10.  The Mach 7 flight comes first.  The flight tests will
be conducted within the Western Test Range off the coast of
southern California.

     Each Hyper-X vehicle will ride on the first stage of an
Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, VA,  booster rocket, which will be
launched by the Dryden B-52.  For each flight, the booster will
accelerate the Hyper-X research vehicle to the test conditions
(Mach 5, 7 or 10) at approximately 100,000 feet.  There, it will
separate from the booster and fly under its own power and
preprogrammed control.

     Ground tests and analyses of both vehicle and engine will be
performed prior to each flight in order to compare flight and
ground-test results.  In addition, the Hyper-X Mach 7 and 5
vehicles will be tested prior to flight in Langley's 8-Foot High
Temperature Wind Tunnel.  The vehicles, with a fully operating
ramjet/scramjet propulsion system, will be put through tests in
the tunnel simulating many, but not all, Mach 7 and 5 flight
conditions.

     A ramjet operates by subsonic combustion of fuel in a stream
of air compressed by the forward speed of the vehicle itself.  In
a conventional jet engine, the compressor section (the fan blades)
compresses the air.

     A scramjet (supersonic-combustion ramjet) is a ramjet engine
in which the airflow through the whole engine remains supersonic.
Scramjet technology is challenging because only limited testing
can be performed in ground facilities.  Hyper-X takes the next
essential step in developing hypersonic, air-breathing technology.

     Images of the Hyper-X vehicles and additional information can
be obtained at the following URLs:

               http://lisar.larc.nasa.gov/LISAR/BROWSE/hyperx.html

                              or

               http://oea.larc.nasa.gov/

NOTE TO EDITORS:  Photos to accompany this release are available
by calling the Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, or the Dryden
Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, at the numbers listed above.

                              - end -