Chinese university sanctioned by US declares success of hypersonic test flight
- Northwestern Polytechnical University team says its combination of rocket and air-breathing engines could exceed Mach 5
- NPU, which is directly managed by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has taken part in the development of many weapons
A Chinese university sanctioned by the US said it had successfully carried out a test flight of a new hypersonic aircraft on Monday.
Feitian 1, which was developed by a research team at Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) in Xian, Shaanxi province, used a combination of rocket and air-breathing engines and could generate a thrust faster than Mach 5, according to a statement posted on the university’s social media account on Tuesday.
The rocket and scramjet engines burned kerosene, a low-cost fuel.
The university said the test flight was a “complete success” and was world-first proof of the feasibility of critical new technologies. The launch was conducted in an unspecified test facility in China’s northwestern region.
The vertically launched vehicle could operate at a wide range of speeds with high combustion efficiency, according to the team, who said this required different engines switching on and off at various phases of the flight smoothly and with stability, a technical challenge facing hypersonic programmes around the world.