Chinese team test jet engine ‘able to reach anywhere on Earth within 2 hours’
- Prototype flown in hypersonic wind tunnel simulating flight conditions at nine times the speed of sound
- The ‘sodramjet’ engine could offer the biggest hope so far of commercial flight reaching hypersonic speed, the scientists say
The test flight of a prototype in a hypersonic wind tunnel in Beijing suggested unprecedented performance in terms of thrust, fuel efficiency and operational stability.
The engine could also serve “reusable trans-atmospheric planes [that will] take off horizontally from an airport runway, accelerate into orbit around the Earth, then re-enter into the atmosphere, and finally land at an airport,” said the scientists, led by Professor Jiang Zonglin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Mechanics in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Chinese Journal of Aeronautics on Saturday.
The futuristic engine has a relatively simple design. It consists of three major components without any moving parts: a single-stage air inlet, hydrogen fuel injector and combustion chamber. The chamber’s mouth opens to the upper end of the air inlet.
“It is easily mistaken for a sliding board,” said a Beijing-based hypersonic flight researcher who was informed about though not involved in the study.