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Hyper-xHyper-X is a NASA multi-year experimental hypersonic ground and flight test program. The program wants to demonstrate "air-breathing" (scramjet) engine technologies that promise to increase payload capacity or reduce vehicle size for the same payload for future hypersonic aircraft and/or reusable space launch vehicles. Hyper-X research began with conceptual design and wind tunnel work in early 1996. A team led by A2I2 (formerly MicroCraft, Inc.) has built three unpiloted X-43A research aircraft in support of the Hyper-X program. The three lifting-body X-43A aircraft are identical in appearance but are engineered with slight differences simulating engine inlet variable geometry, generally a function of Mach number. Each vehicle is designed to fly once. The first and second vehicles have been designed to fly at Mach 7 and the third at Mach 10. The Hyper-X Phase I is a NASA Aeronautics and Space Technology Enterprise program being conducted jointly by the Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, and the Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California. Langley is the lead center and is responsible for hypersonic technology development. Dryden is responsible for flight research. Phase I is a seven-year, approximately $230 million, program to flight-validate scramjet propulsion, hypersonic aerodynamics and design methods. A follow-on program, the X-43C, is indefinitely suspended. It involved Mach 5 through 7 flights of a slightly larger X-43 powered by an Air Force Research Laboratory developed scramjet engine. This activity, which was one project within the Marshall Space Flight Center Next Generation Launch Technology (NGLT) program, was aimed at a first flight in 2007. External link
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