X-43 HITS 6,600 MPH OVER PACIFIC OCEAN.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - NASA's X-43 unmanned aircraft hit a record 6,600 mph Tuesday in the program's final test flight, providing researchers with data for use on future ultra-high-speed aircraft and spacecraft.

Carried aloft by a modified B-52 bomber, the 12-foot-long, wedge-shape craft was released off the California coast and then propelled to an altitude of 110,000 feet by a Pegasus space booster. The X-43 fired its experimental engine for about 10 seconds, cruising at speeds approaching 10 times the speed of sound.

``It's as good as or better than the Sox breaking The Curse,'' said Joel Sitz, the X-43 project manager at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. ``It's 90 seconds of terror. Once it's over, you realize you've accomplished great things.''

Sitz added: ``We've given industry and government a lot of confidence to go forward with hypersonics.''

The goal of the $230 million program is to advance technologies for a scramjet - or supersonic combustion ramjet - engine, an ultra-high-speed engine that draws oxygen for combustion from the atmosphere rather than carrying it as a rocket ship does. By not having to carry oxygen, a spacecraft or ultra-high-speed aircraft could save fuel weight and carry more equipment.

Scramjets have been the subject of ground tests and studies, but without actual flight data researchers had no way to validate that work.

``This is a data set that dwarfs any data set we've had before,'' said Randy Voland, head of the scramjet propulsion team at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia.

Building a hypersonic craft is ``definitely doable,'' Voland said.

After its engine shut down, the X-43A carried out a set of preprogrammed maneuvers all the way to its planned crash into the Pacific Ocean. The aircraft will not be recovered.

The maneuvers conducted by the X-43 will also be used to provide data that could be used for building future ultra-high-speed planes or spacecraft.

With the successful flight, NASA wrapped up its first hypersonic flight program since the X-15 rocket plane of the 1960s.

Two of the program's three flights were successful. The first X-43 aircraft had to be blown up in June 2001 over the Pacific Ocean by a self- destruction mechanism when the Pegasus booster rocket carrying it went out of control after its fins came off.

In March, the second X-43 hit speeds of about 5,000 mph, providing data that researchers said will take months to fully analyze. That flight was recognized for setting a speed record for an air-breathing engine by the Guinness World Records book.

The flight also allowed NASA's B-52 mother ship to retire on a winning note. The airplane, the oldest flying B-52, is wrapping up a record of service that has included more than 900 missions, including launching 106 of the X-15 rocket-plane flights and 127 flights of wingless aircraft that contributed to the development of the space shuttle.

The airplane will be returned to the Air Force, which is working on plans to put it on display at Edwards.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color -- ran in Valley edition only) A NASA Pegasus fires its rocket, carrying the X-43 up to 110,000 feet, where the scramjet kicked in, reaching 6,600 mph.

(2 -- color -- ran in Valley edition only) A NASA B-52 lifts off from Edwards AFB on Tuesday, carrying a Pegasus booster rocket and X-43 scramjet under its wing.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News