A hypersonic cruiser concept for the 21st century

摘要

This paper describes a hypersonic cruiser concept for the 21st century. It is based on studies conducted by The Boeing Company and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA Langley) to assess the capability of a hypersonic vehicle concept to conduct cruise and/or space launch missions. It details a Mach 10 cruise vehicle from NASA's Dual-Fuel Air breathing Hypersonic Vehicle Design study (1995/96), and a Mach 10 cruise/space access vehicle, which resulted from follow-on work. Vehicle performance is presented showing that 10 cruise vehicle can operate over a significant mission radius, and that the Mach 10 cruise/space access configuration can accomplish desired space launch and cruise missions. A rocket based combined cycle (RBCC) variant is also introduced showing favorable cruise and space launch capability. NASA's Hyper-X flight experiment, which is the next step towards achieving this vision, is also described.