The Air Force now has just a single X-51A left.
(Credit: U.S. Air Force)
No one ever said it would be easy going Mach 6.
The U.S. Air Force's experimental X-51A Waverider failed yesterday in its bid to hit that hypersonic speed. Although the aircraft did separate as planned from its B-52 mother ship in midair, things quickly went wrong. Today's official Air Force statement, issued just minutes ago, describes things this way:
The X-51 safely separated from the B-52 and the rocket booster fired as planned. However after 16 seconds, a fault was identified with one of the cruiser control fins. Once the X-51 separated from the rocket booster, approximately 15 seconds later, the cruiser was not able to maintain control due to the faulty control fin and was lost.
The X-51A was supposed to fly for 300 seconds (that is, 5 minutes). The unmanned aircraft likely crashed into the Pacific Ocean -- which was, essentially, the planned end for the Waverider's one-way flight, but not so abruptly.
Separation from the B-52 occurred over Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center Sea Range Aug. 14 at approximately 11:36 a.m. PST.
"It is unfortunate that a problem with this subsystem caused a termination before we could light the scramjet engine," said Charlie Brink, X-51A program manager for Air Force Research Laboratory, in a statement. "All our data showed we had created the right co... [Read more]
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