Research in the Hypersonics Project focuses on solving some of the most difficult challenges in hypersonic flight, such as the development of materials for airframe and airbreathing propulsion applications that can withstand severe temperatures; the development of predictive models for compressible flow, turbulence, heating, ablation, and combustion; the creation of advanced control techniques for vehicles that fly in the hypersonic flow regime; and the generation of new experimental techniques that can be used to validate our theoretical and computational models. In addition, the Project will work toward airbreathing propulsion systems that integrate high-speed turbine engines and scramjets, and develop integrated physics-based design tools that simultaneously design the airframe and propulsion systems. Technology developed under the Hypersonics Project may also help the Department of Defense achieve its goal of global range at high speeds with persistence and significant payload.

The Hypersonics Project focuses on the development and validation of enabling foundational tools and technologies for two hypersonic system classes: Reusable Airbreathing Launch Vehicles (RALV), and Planetary Atmospheric Entry Systems (PAES), a large vehicle focused on transporting humans and scientific payloads to and from Mars. There is a critical need for dramatic improvements in our current capability to enable the landing of large payloads with or without humans safely on Mars as part of NASA’s Space Exploration Initiative.

At the current time, rocket-powered, expendable launch vehicles reach hypersonic speeds in the upper atmosphere while transporting payloads to orbit. Humans are transported to orbit and back by the Space Shuttle, a semi-reusable system based on 30-year old technology. Unpowered hypersonic entry vehicles return to Earth from near-Earth and interplanetary orbits. Probes transit the atmospheres of other planets and land robotic exploration systems. While these are extraordinary accomplishments, the extreme heating of hypersonic flight requires designers to resort to large margins to mitigate uncertainties, resulting in reduced mission capabilities and increased costs. Future airbreathing launch vehicles and planetary entry systems capable of accurately landing large payloads on Mars and other planets will be enabled by today’s NASA research.

A key objective of the Hypersonics Project is to develop methods and tools that adequately model fundamental physics, and allow credible, physics-based optimization for future operational hypersonic vehicle systems of the two classes identified above. This research will enable more efficient and safer hypersonic systems to emerge. A stable, long-term commitment to investment in foundational hypersonic research should lead to sufficient understanding of the underlying physics. Then design methods can achieve the level of knowledge required to fully utilize the possibilities of hypersonic airbreathing flight, and enable it to become routine. The Hypersonic Project research is organized within technical disciplines, each focusing on the enabling technologies in their area.

Technical disciplines:

• Materials and Structures (M&S)
• Airbreathing Propulsion (Prop)
• Aerodynamics, Aerothermodynamics, and Plasmadynamics (AAP)
• Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C)
• Experimental Capabilities (ExCap)
• Physics-Based, Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization (PB-MDAO)
• Atmospheric Entry Decelerator Systems (AEDS)