X-51 WaveRider: Air Force Gears Up for Hypersonic Missile Test

The Air Force later this month is set to test what could be a ground-breaking flight of a hypersonic missile.

The X-51 WaveRider took its maiden flight last year, demonstrating the longest-ever flight of a supersonic combustion ramjet engine, also known as a scramjet. But the next test flight is expected to fly faster and farther: at speeds of up to Mach 6 and lasting four minutes.

"Our next flight is scheduled for March 22," Charlie Brink, Air Force Research Laboratory's X-51A program manager, told AOL News today.

Chad Bellay, U.S. Air Force

An X-51A WaveRider hypersonic flight test vehicle is uploaded to an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52 for fit testing at Edwards Air Force Base on July 17, 2009.

The X-51 will be launched from a B-52 bomber flying over the Pacific Ocean Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center Sea Range, and then will be rocket-boosted to speeds up to several times the speed of sound before transitioning to scramjet power. The last test flight, though successful in some respects, was cut short due to a faulty seal that allowed hot gases to build up inside of the vehicle, rather than going out of the back nozzle as designed.

Although the Air Force has long said that the X-51 could eventually be used for a number of purposes, a senior Air Force official recently confirmed that it is moving forward with plans to turn it into a weapon.

"In Fiscal Year 2012, we will begin weaponizing the X-51 research vehicle," Stephen Walker, the Air Force's deputy assistant secretary for science, told a congressional panel earlier this month. "Development activities will focus on miniaturization of subsystems to allow for a payload and the ability to cold-start the weapon after release from an aircraft."

Pentagon officials have talked about using hypersonic weapons as part of the military's plans to develop a Prompt Global Strike weapon, which could hit anywhere in the world within two hours. Such a missile could be used to hit a fleeing terrorist, or a suspected nuclear site.

Brink declined to go into details on plans to weaponize the X-51, saying the current vehicle is merely for testing. "The X-51 is not a weapon," Brink said.

However, Brink said there are plans to work on technologies that would allow the service to transition the X-51 "to a more weapons-friendly design."