To understand the X-43A, you have to go back to the 1990s and remember what NASA was trying to do. For decades, hypersonic flight lived in two places: on paper and in rocket programs. The X-15 rocket ...

Stratolaunch has finally found a use for the world’s largest airplane. Twice in the last five months, the company launched a hypersonic vehicle over the Pacific Ocean, accelerated it to more than five ...

Just a couple of decades ago, aviation had some rules. If you wanted to fly fast within the atmosphere, you used a jet engine. The champion here was the SR-71 Blackbird, designed by Lockheed Martin, ...

Hypersonic flight could one day make long-haul travel as quick as a short movie. Researchers are testing how turbulence behaves at extreme speeds, a critical hurdle for designing these aircraft. Their ...

Key Points and Summary on X-43A - NASA's X-43A was a small, unmanned experimental aircraft that, in 2004, shattered world records by flying at nearly Mach 10 (almost 7,000 mph), becoming the fastest ...

Stratolaunch has finally found a use for the world’s largest airplane. Twice in the past five months, the company launched a hypersonic vehicle over the Pacific Ocean, accelerated it to more than five ...

Stratolaunch may conduct another hypersonic test flight this weekend from California's Mojave Air & Space Port. The flights are part of a Department of Defense program to test advanced capabilities ...

Hypersonic vehicles — aircraft that can reach speeds of Mach 5 and beyond — are subject to extreme conditions while they are in flight, requiring strong yet aerodynamic materials to keep them both in ...