Beyond Mach 5: To What Extent will Hypersonics Research and Development Lead to Practical Military Applications Over the Next Decade?

2 March 2011

Historically, flying at hypersonic speeds - defined as mach 5 or higher - has been a little more than a dream for rocket scientists and aviation enthusiasts eager for new breakthroughs in 21st century flight.

Today, however, hypersonic vehicles are getting closer to reality thanks to the US military's growing interest and financial investments in the technology.

US military leaders see the potential for hypersonic propulsion to revolutionise warfare by providing a means to hit a target anywhere in the world in a matter of hours - without using nuclear weapons.

As the Obama administration presses for the reduction of the US nuclear arsenal, non-nuclear options with global reach are increasingly being seen by US military officials as an attractive deterrence option.

The Pentagon's previously sporadic interest in hypersonic technology has become more sustained, with US military services taking on a series of projects to test hypersonics. Some examples include the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 (HTV-2);DARPA's Arclight programme; the army's Advanced Hypersonic Weapon; the US Air Force's the X-51A Wave-rider; and a joint U.S-Australian program called Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HiFire).

Meanwhile, the US Air Force has put forth an ambitious “roadmap” for hypersonics technology that envisions the demonstration of a very high-speed weapon by 2017, followed later by the demonstration of a Mach 4+ reusable aircraft.

That said, there are still serious technological challenges as well as potential problems with the procedures used to test hypersonic flight. Recent tests of the HTV-2 and the HiFire experiments were failures, prompting some scientists to call for changes in the way that testing is conducted.

This online seminar will explore the ongoing efforts to develop hypersonic propulsion technology, the potential applications for this technology, and the likelihood that hypersonic propulsion will find its way into operational use with the US military.

For more details about the content of this online seminar, please take a look at the programme.

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