China Developing Giant Magnetic Launcher for Hypersonic Space Planes

China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation’s (CASIC) plans to build a giant magnetic launcher to propel airplanes up to speeds where they can start hypersonic scramjet engines. CASIC has built a 2000 meter long low-vacuum track high-speed maglev test facility in the industrial heartland of Datong, Shanxi province. This is able to accelerate heavy object …

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Y-Combinator Backed Startup Making BREAKTHROUGH Super-Efficient Mach 6 Jet Engine

Electric motors are finally getting good enough in performance to capture efficiency gains from having a second turbine drive an adaptive cycle jet engine. This new jet engine will enable commercial flights anywhere in the world 3x faster than anything today for the same price. That's the win – Commercial flights anywhere in the world …

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AI to Track Hypersonic Missiles

EpiSci will use AI software to leverage infrared satellite data from the Space Development Agency (SDA) future constellation of hundreds of satellites. The satellites will have overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) sensors. The startup EpiSci has expertise in signal processing technology using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) techniques to provide warfighters a competitive advantage. A …

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US DOD Wants to Fully Own and Operate SpaceX Starships and Boosters for Military Missions

The Pentagon wants to make some of the Starship upper stage and the two-stage super heavy booster and Starship into government-owned, government-operated assets instead of contracting the company every time the rocket is needed according to Aviation Week. The Pentagon has funded a project to develop the capability and have a proof of concept demo …

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Hermeus is Rapidly Iterating to Quickly Develop Hypersonic Aircraft

Hermeus completed testing of their full system hypersonic ground Mk0 test plane. It is a complete system made in 6 months and tested in 37 days. The fully-integrated vehicle, Quarterhorse Mk 0 is a non-flying prototype acted as a ‘dynamic iron bird’ for the company by validating all major aircraft subsystems in a real-world environment. …

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Rotating Detonating Engines Can Enable Practical Hypersonic Planes

The main problem holding back reusable hypersonic planes is that traditional ramjet engines become very inefficient over mach 2 while hypersonic engines do not work well below mach 4. There is the need to solve the hypersonic speed gap between mach 2 and mach 4. Rotating Detonating Engines can be more efficient up to mach …

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China Makes Most Powerful Detonation Engine for Hypersonic Flight

Scientists at the forefront of hypersonic weapons research in China say they have a more powerful revolutionary air-breathing engine. The “revolutionary” air-breathing engine could lift an aircraft from a runway to more than 30km (18.6 miles) into the stratosphere and continuously accelerate it to 16 times the speed of sound. The longest intercontinental flights would …

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Hypersonic Missiles Vs Next Gen Satellites, Drones and Sensors

The US Space Force and military will spend $15-30 billion over the next 5 years to deploy next generation satellites, drones, ground sensors and other global systems to track and monitor and defeat hypersonic missiles. Hypersonic missiles will go two to six times faster than regular missiles. Hypersonic missiles will move at 1.5 to six …

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Next Generation Satellites and Sensors to Counter Hypersonic Missiles

A new, elevated sensor architecture is required to detect, identify, and track a spectrum of maneuvering missile threats with sufficient quality to support missile defense fire control. These threats combine high speeds, unpredictable, non-ballistic trajectories, and large raid sizes to stress legacy defense designs. SpaceX has already place over 5000 Starlink satellites into orbit. Placing …

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Breakthrough Hypersonic Dual-Mode Ramjet with Rotating Detonation Combustion

GE Aerospace has shown a bew architecture with Rotating Detonation Combustion (RDC) could power super-efficient hypersonic vehicles with longer range that will go faster than MACH 5 (over 4,000 MPH). The team has moved very fast. It took just 12 months from start to finish for the DMRJ with RDC demonstration. The team is on …

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