Experimentation, Test, and Evaluation Requirements for Future Airbreathing Hypersonic Systems

Abstract

Experiences gained in recent airbreathing hypersonic vehicle development programs have ascertained that mastering hypersonic e ight will depend directly on continued ability to experiment, test, and evaluate. Indeed, many of the hypersonic e ight systems being studied will require testing and modeling capabilities that do not currently exist or that may soon be lost if current infrastructures are not maintained. The testing and evaluation of hypersonic systems represents a unique set of challenges. Duplication of the hypersonic e ight environment requires extreme temperatures and pressures coupled with complex physical interactions. Ground-test facilities are limited in their ability to duplicate all salient parameters simultaneously. Data from e ight experimentation are also limited due to range airspace requirements for long distance e ight corridors. These limitations manifest themselvesin rangesafety, data acquisition, and environmental concerns.Computational techniquesarea growing supplement to experiment, but are not a replacement. Despite the improvement in both hardware and algorithms, analytical models and computational techniques are extremely time consuming, fall short of adequate e delity, and requiredata to anchor andvalidatethem.Theconclusion isthat only through a uniquecombination of experiment, e ight testing, analysis, and computation, will hypersonic system risks be reduced and the vision of airbreathing hypersonic e ight be realized.