Futuristic rocket soars in test flight

By Richard Stenger
CNN

The Lockheed Martin hybrid rocket sits on a launch pad at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.

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FACT BOX A hybrid rocket works by burning an inert solid fuel in the presence of a gaseous or liquid oxidizer. The process is similar to the way a candle burns. RELATED Wallops Flight Facility  Lockheed Martin Space Systems

(CNN) -- A hybrid rocket loaded with prototypes of futuristic spacecraft technologies successfully completed its first suborbital flight, the U.S. space agency announced.

The fast-flying hybrid rocket contained three test designs, which could be used for the next generation of high-speed aircraft and planetary-entry technology, NASA said.

"This suborbital rocket flight was intended to test these concepts at more than Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, during re-entry," NASA research engineer Marc Murbach said.

"We are trying to develop a wind tunnel in the sky. This capability may herald new techniques for the rapid development of innovative hypersonic flight concepts."

The payload included a hypersonic parachute, a super-stable planetary re-entry probe model and a "wave rider" flying wedge, which is about 50 inches (127 cm) long and designed to fly like a glider after being deployed high in the atmosphere.

NASA's Suborbital Aerodynamic Reentry Experiments project team is studying data on the payload's performance.

The plume of the rocket, which was launched last week from a NASA flight facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, could be seen more than 200 miles away in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The launch vehicle also used pioneering technology, which could someday make launches much safer and cheaper.

The Lockheed Martin rocket flight was the first to test a large hybrid propulsion system. The 60-foot (18 meters) rocket used liquid oxygen and solid fuel to reach an altitude of 43.5 miles (70 km), not far from the edge of space.

"Hybrid propulsion offers significant advantages over solid-fuel propellants in that hybrids are nonexplosive, able to be throttled, low cost and environmentally benign," said Randy Tassin, a vice-president of Lockheed Martin space systems.

NASA and Lockheed Martin hope to develop a type of single-stage hybrid propulsion system to replace existing two- and three-stage sounding rockets, which are used to conduct engineering and scientific tests.

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