bodyType

customContents

entityId

printArticlePageQuery

filter

article

body

urlAlias

articleSectionsContent

articleSeoArticle

articleSourceHeaderArticle

contentSchemaRenderContent

contentSubHeadlineContent

contentHeadlineContent

mainImagePrintArticleArticle

authorBlockPrintArticleArticle

contentSponsorTagContent

articlePianoPaywallContent

scmpYoutubeContent

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

query printArticlePageQuery(
  $entityId: String!
  $customContents: [CustomContentInput]
  $bodyType: BodyFormatTypeEnum
) {
  article(filter: {entityId: $entityId}) {
    entityId
    body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
      json
    }
    urlAlias
    ...articleSectionsContent
    ...articleSeoArticle_3o8td4
    ...articleSourceHeaderArticle
    ...contentSchemaRenderContent
    ...contentSubHeadlineContent
    ...contentHeadlineContent
    ...mainImagePrintArticleArticle
    ...authorBlockPrintArticleArticle
    ...contentSponsorTagContent
    ...articlePianoPaywallContent
    ...scmpYoutubeContent
    ...hooksTrackPageViewArticle
    id
  }
}

fragment articlePianoPaywallContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksPaywallPromiseContent
}

fragment articleSectionsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      ...helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection
      ...entityLink
      name
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment articleSeoArticle_3o8td4 on Article {
  ...hooksArticleSeoArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersGetArticleTypeArticle
  entityId
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
  summary {
    text
  }
  subHeadline {
    text
  }
  body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
    text
  }
  keywords
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  topics {
    name
    entityId
    id
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  images {
    style(filter: {style: "768x768"}) {
      url
    }
  }
  readingTime
}

fragment articleSourceHeaderArticle on Article {
  urlAlias
  ...entityLink
}

fragment authorBlockPrintArticleArticle on Article {
  ...defaultArticleDateContent
  ...authorNamesArticle
}

fragment authorNameAuthor on Author {
  ...entityLink
  name
  entityUuid
}

fragment authorNamesArticle on Article {
  authorLocations
  authors {
    entityId
    location
    ...authorNameAuthor
    id
  }
}

fragment blockquoteQuoteContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment contentHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  socialHeadline
  ...contentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
}

fragment contentNewsletterWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
    id
  }
  sections {
    value {
      relatedNewsletters {
        ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
        id
      }
      id
    }
  }
  ... on Article {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment contentSchemaRenderContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...blockquoteQuoteContent
  ...imageContent
  ...inlineWidgetContent
  ...photoGalleryWidgetContent
  ...scmpYoutubeContent
}

fragment contentShareWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  shortUrl
  socialHeadline
  headline
}

fragment contentSponsorTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentSubHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  subHeadline {
    json
  }
  summary {
    json
  }
  ...contentSchemaRenderContent
}

fragment defaultArticleDateContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksArticleDateUtilsContent
}

fragment entityLink on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  __typename
  entityId
  entityUuid
  urlAlias
  urlRedirect {
    toUrl
    id
  }
  application {
    entityId
    id
  }
  ... on Section {
    fullSectionPath {
      entityId
      id
    }
    parentSection
  }
  ...helpersAppBarVariantBase
  ...helpersApplicationBase
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersAppBarVariantBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsLiveArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...helpersSectionContent
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersApplicationBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
}

fragment helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection on Section {
  name
}

fragment helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle on Article {
  entityId
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  disableOffPlatformContent
  sponsorType
  published
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment helpersCheckIsLiveArticle on Article {
  flattenTypeIds
  liveArticle {
    status
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    paywallTypes {
      entityUuid
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsStyleArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersGetArticleTypeArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        entityId
        id
      }
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter on Newsletter {
  entityId
  name
  alternativeName
  description {
    text
  }
  summary {
    text
  }
  homepageDescription {
    text
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle on Article {
  authors {
    types
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersStyleSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersUseContentSponsorContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    sponsor {
      ...sponsorTagSponsor
      name
      type
      id
    }
    id
  }
  ... on Article {
    sponsorType
  }
  ...helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent
}

fragment hooksArticleDateUtilsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  createdDate
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
}

fragment hooksArticleSeoArticle on Article {
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle
  entityId
  headline
  socialHeadline
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
  images {
    generic_og: style(filter: {style: "og_image_scmp_generic"}) {
      url
    }
    styles(filter: {styles: ["og_image_posties_article", "og_postmag", "og_image_style", "og_image_scmp_analysis", "og_image_scmp_explainer", "og_image_scmp_editorial", "og_image_scmp_fact_check", "og_image_scmp_debate", "og_image_scmp_live", "og_image_scmp_obituary", "og_image_scmp_opinion", "og_image_scmp_review", "og_image_scmp_series", "og_image_scmp_generic"]}) {
      url
      style
    }
    type
  }
  urlAlias
}

fragment hooksContentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        name
        entityId
        description {
          text
        }
        id
      }
    }
    ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  }
  flag
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  ...hooksContentHelperContent
}

fragment hooksContentHelperContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle
  ...helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle
  ...helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle
  flag
}

fragment hooksPaywallPromiseContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment hooksTrackPageViewArticle on Article {
  entityId
  publishedDate
  headline
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  entityUuid
}

fragment imageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  ...checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent
}

fragment inlineWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentNewsletterWidgetContent
}

fragment mainImagePrintArticleArticle on Article {
  images {
    title
    url
    isSlideshow
    size_652x446: style(filter: {style: "652x446"}) {
      url
    }
  }
}

fragment photoGalleryDialogContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment photoGalleryWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...photoGalleryDialogContent
}

fragment scmpYoutubeContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  publishedDate
}

fragment sponsorTagSponsor on Sponsor {
  name
  type
  images {
    url
  }
}


sections

types

disableOffPlatformContent

sponsorType

published

headline

socialHeadline

authors

images

publishedDate

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

keywords

topics

readingTime

authorLocations

entityUuid

Stephen Chen

A research team in China has built and tested a prototype hypersonic flight engine based on a bold design by a Nasa scientist more than two decades ago.
Unlike most hypersonic aircraft with an engine at the belly, the Two Stage Vehicle (TSV) X-plane proposed by Ming Han Tang – then chief engineer of Nasa’s hypersonic programme in the late 1990s – was driven by two separate engines on the sides.
The engines could work as normal turbine jet engines at lower speed and then switch to a high-speed mode which has no moving parts as the aircraft accelerates to five times the speed of sound, or beyond.

The aerodynamics of the dual-engine design was sophisticated and some important questions – such as whether the engines could ignite after switching to the hypersonic speed – remained unclear. The Boeing Manta X-47C, a programme to verify Tang’s design, was terminated by the US government in the early 2000s over technical difficulties and cost.
Professor Tan Huijun and his colleagues, at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the eastern province of Jiangsu, have built a prototype machine with a pair of side-opening air inlets based on Tang’s blueprint that was declassified in 2011.
China fires up new hypersonic missile challenge to US defences
Tan, who has received a top government award for his contribution to China’s hypersonic weapons programme, tested the prototype in a wind tunnel that could simulate flight conditions from Mach 4 to Mach 8 for several seconds. They found the engines could start under some of the most challenging flight conditions, just as Tang predicted.
Tang’s idea had been largely neglected by the US government, but in China the design attracted increasing attention because “understanding its work mechanism can provide important guidance to hypersonic plane and engine development”, Tan and colleagues said in a paper published in the Chinese peer-reviewed Journal of Propulsion Technology on Sunday.


Tang was born in Chongqing, China’s wartime capital, to Zi Chang Tang, a Nationalist Army general. At the end of the Chinese civil war, his family moved to Taiwan and Brazil before eventually settling in the United States in the 1950s.
Tang started as an aerospace engineer at Nasa’s Dryden Flight Research Centre in California in the 1960s and worked his way up to leading positions at Lockheed Martin’s top secret programmes for the development of high-speed spy planes, including the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird.
From the late 1980s, Tang headed hypersonic flight research programmes at Nasa while overseeing the agency’s collaboration with the US Air Force.
Tang left Nasa in 1999, a year when mistrust of ethnic Chinese scientists reached a new height in the US.
Wen Hoo Lee, a nuclear physicist with the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, was indicted for providing US nuclear weapon secrets to China. Though he was later cleared of the charge and received an apology and a US$1.6 million settlement from the US federal government, the case was widely reported and affected many researchers with a Chinese background, especially those working in sensitive facilities.
America’s hidden role in Chinese weapons research
Chen Shiyi, then the deputy director of the Centre for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos and one of the world’s top experts on turbulence, quit the same year. Chen eventually returned to China and helped establish advanced hypersonic research laboratories.
The purge of Chinese researchers in the US coincided with the start of China’s hypersonic weapons programme in the early 2000s, according to some Chinese space scientists.
Tang worked as a consultant after leaving Nasa. He died in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 2018 aged 79.
Tang’s design was not perfect, according to Tan and his colleagues. Computer simulation and experimental results suggested strong turbulence could occur around some corners in the air inlet, affecting flight stability.
There was also a limit to how steeply a plane could climb without choking the engines. Though the dual-engine layout was feasible with some advantages, as the ground experiment suggested, many challenging issues still had to be resolved, Tan’s team said.


China’s hypersonic weapons mostly use a rocket in the initial stage of flight. After reaching a high altitude at high speed, the rocket shuts down and lets the air-breathing engine take over.
But Yin Zeyong, director of science and technology at the Aero Engine Corporation of China in Beijing, said China was also rapidly building its capability to develop and test turbo jet engines that could fly at Mach 3-4 to work with or replace the rocket in a hypersonic flight.
Chinese space authorities plan to build a plane that can transport 10 passengers to anywhere on the planet in an hour by 2035.
Asian-Americans push to review China Initiative after concerns of racial profiling
Although there were many challenges – such as reaching a high temperature and being complex in structure – hypersonic engines built around turbojet technology, known as turbine-based combined cycle, “can be a more feasible and optimal choice”, Yin said in a paper published in the Chinese peer-reviewed journal Aeroengine in August.
In July, the US Air Force awarded private start-up company Hermeus a US$60 million contract to develop a prototype aircraft with similar technology in three years. The Hermeus Quarterhorse aims to reach Mach 5 with one engine.


Hypersonic flight: Chinese scientists create prototype with an engine design abandoned by Nasa

The Boeing Manta X-47C was a programme to verify Ming Han Tang’s design. It was terminated by the US government in the early 2000s because of technical difficulties and cost. Photo: Handout

The prototype based on Tang’s blueprint was tested at a wind tunnel in Nanjing, Jiangsu. Photo: Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics

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China

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The concept by Chinese-born engineer Ming Han Tang was largely neglected by the US government, but in China the design has attracted increasing attention
Purge of Chinese researchers in the US coincided with the start of China’s hypersonic weapons programme, say some Chinese space scientists



The concept by Chinese-born engineer Ming Han Tang was largely neglected by the US government, but in China the design has attracted increasing attention.


China's military weapons

China’s military

Anti-Chinese sentiment

Hypersonic flight

Hypersonic flight: Chinese scientists create prototype with an engine design abandoned by Nasa

The concept by Chinese-born engineer Ming Han Tang was largely neglected by the US government, but in China the design has attracted increasing attention Purge of Chinese researchers in the US coincided with the start of China’s hypersonic weapons programme, say some Chinese space scientists

The concept by Chinese-born engineer Ming Han Tang was largely neglected by the US government, but in China the design has attracted increasing attention

Purge of Chinese researchers in the US coincided with the start of China’s hypersonic weapons programme, say some Chinese space scientists