Warp Speed : Rocketdyne Plans Hypersonic Jet Engine Plant to Get an Edge in X-30 Competition
Rocketdyne in Canoga Park is getting ready to build the world’s largest hypersonic jet engine testing facility on its property in the Santa Susana Mountains near Simi Valley.
The facility would test engines intended to propel airplanes at speeds of up to Mach 25, or 18,000 m.p.h. Airplanes with those engines would reach altitudes of 150,000 feet and be able to withstand temperatures of more than 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
“We are talking about a multimillion-dollar facility that would be the best in the world,” said William Escher, Rocketdyne’s manager of hypersonic activities. The company is expected to make a formal announcement about the test facility by the end of the year.
Rocketdyne’s facility is the latest salvo in a battle between it, Pratt & Whitney and Marquardt Co. in Van Nuys to win the right to build the jet engines for the National Aerospace Plane.
The plane will theoretically take off horizontally from a conventional runway, reach hypersonic speeds of up to 18,000 m.p.h., fly 10 times faster and three times higher than existing commerical aircraft and have a range of 8,000 miles. By contrast, the Concorde flies 1,350 m.p.h. and can travel only 3,800 miles without refueling. The NASP would be different from the space shuttle because it has no separate rocket booster, no external fuel tanks and takes off horizontally rather than vertically.
The Defense Department and National Aeronautics and Space Administration are spending $3.3 billion to build one experimental plane. Officially called the X-30, it is the most expensive experimental aircraft project ever undertaken by the United States.
But the possible speed of the plane has already gotten people excited, including President Reagan. The President mentioned it in his 1986 State of the Union address when he said, “We are now going forward with research on a new Orient Express that could, by the end of the next decade, take off from Dulles Airport and accelerate up to 25 times the speed of sound, attaining low Earth orbit or flying to Tokyo within two hours.”
But it is not at all certain that things will work out that way. The NASP is just an experimental vehicle and not a model ready for commercial use for hypersonic air travel. The actual production cost of the plane isn’t known and, indeed, some of the necessary materials needed to enable the plane to withstand high temperatures don’t exist. “This is not an operational machine. It’s not going to take anything up to a space station and it’s not going to take an investment banker to Tokyo,” Escher said.
Robert Barthelemy, director of the NASP office, added: “We’re not trying to build a commercial vehicle in the 1990s. Unfortunately, when the program was kicked off in 1986 the President referred to it as the Orient Express. That is not the program, nor is that the goal of the program.”
The sole goal at the moment is to uncover new technologies that could be used in other applications besides the NASP. For example, a new engine design could be used in missiles or a lighter wing made of new materials could help commercial aircraft fly faster and more economically.
During the summer of 1990, the government will decide whether to scrap the project or continue it. In March, the Defense Department and NASA are sending out teams of evaluators to assess what progress contractors have made.
In the meantime, the race is on to develop the experimental plane. In August, 1987, Rocketdyne and Pratt & Whitney were each awarded contracts worth $92 million to develop the engine, or propulsion systems, for the test plane. “I would have to say right now they’re neck and neck,” NASP director Barthelemy said.
General Dynamics, McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell are working on the NASP’s airframe.
In theory, the plane will reach its extraordinary speeds by using a series of three engines. The first engine will help the plane take off at a steep pitch. That engine is classified.
The second engine is a ramjet, which has been used on missiles, and would propel the plane to speeds ranging from Mach 3 to Mach 8. (Mach 1 is the speed of sound, or 760 m.p.h. at sea level.) The ramjet works by taking in air, then slowing it down while adding fuel to create combustion. The process creates the thrust to propel the plane.
The third engine, called a scramjet (the sc stands for supersonic combustion), would propel the airplane beyond speeds of Mach 8. This hydrogen-burning engine has a bigger opening and takes in more air but only slows it down slightly. So in theory this engine has no upper speed limit because the faster the plane goes, the faster the air comes in.
Pratt & Whitney, which is based in West Palm Beach, Fla., has hired Marquardt as a subcontractor to test various engine designs. Marquardt was founded in 1944 and now builds bombs and propulsion systems used in missiles and satellites. Last week, Marquardt began testing a scramjet engine at a simulated altitude of 50,000 feet and at speeds of more than 2,280 m.p.h.
Marquardt received about $6 million from the Defense Department to modify its testing facilities for the NASP work. The actual testing site is called a cell and looks like a small water tank. The cell simulates the conditions--including temperatures of more than 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit--that the NASP engine will encounter. “Marquardt has some of the better facilities in the country for testing ramjet/scramjet operations,” Escher said.
However good it is, Rocketdyne figures Marquardt’s test facilities and similar test sites in the country can only simulate speeds up to Mach 8, which is not nearly fast enough for the NASP. That is why Rocketdyne has decided to build its own plant.
“The program is pushing the ground test capability of the nation to the very hilt,” Escher said. “That means that the ground test facilities we have right now are in no way sufficient.”
The government is expected to trim the number of companies working on the NASP after the program is evaluated in 1990. “We may go down to three or less companies to carry us for the rest of the program,” Barthelemy said.
Marquardt is likely to continue working on the program beyond 1990 because it is involved on both sides of the race. While Marquardt is testing Pratt & Whitney’s concepts, it is helping Rocketdyne design the first of the three engines that the NASP plane needs to reach orbit.
To keep the competition fair, Marquardt has had to separate some of its employees. “We isolate two separate groups of engineers and staff management behind two separate sets of locked facilities,” said Michael Figoff, Marquardt’s marketing director. “They’re not allowed to talk to each other about business.”
Many scientists say a commercial version of the hydrogen-powered X-30 cannot be built until at least the year 2020. Researchers must clear enormous hurdles before such a plane can be built.
Certain heat-resistant materials have yet to be discovered, and engineers haven’t been able to come up with a plane design that is aerodynamically sound at all of the different altitudes that would be reached. “There are still gaps and things that don’t exist,” Escher said.
The speed the NASP requires hasn’t been reached either. “This program is so fast, so to speak, it gives you perspective. You look back on things like Mach 6 and call it low speed,” Escher said. “That’s an irony since we haven’t gone to Mach 6.
“What we’re trying to do really is to come up with the idea that we can reduce this high risk, high payoff to a reasonable risk level so that the government can, with all good feelings about it, make a decision to go” forward, he said.
The first test flight of the X-30 is scheduled for fall, 1994. If it happens, it will be at Edwards Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles.
Proponents of the NASP argue that the plane would be more economical than the Concorde because of its faster turnaround time. Flight times would be considerably shorter so more trips could be made in one day.
But plenty of aerospace engineers are skeptical. A one-way ticket on the Concorde from New York to London now costs $3,210. The Concorde “is interesting to ride on but very few people want to pay the bill,” said Willis Hawkins, senior adviser to Lockheed Corp. and a 51-year veteran of aerospace design. “Imagine going four to five times faster than that. The bill is going to be even bigger.”
The fastest plane in use today is the Air Force’s SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, which can reach a speed of 2,100 m.p.h. and go as high as 80,000 feet.
Some scientists believe that the NASP’s greatest chance of success lies with the military. On paper, the NASP is so fast that if, for instance, the Soviets were to launch westward-bound conventional bombers from their own bases, they would be intercepted by U.S. NASP jets even before the Soviets made it to England.
Whether or not the NASP ever becomes a reality, the contractors working on it think they’ll benefit in the long run from the new technologies it generates.
“We will use the technology for other things,” Escher said. “This is the real earnest reason why the three airframe and the two propulsion companies are in this game. X-30 is not a moneymaker.”
