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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency and dated 8 March 2010, was produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It gives a historical and technical review of how to reach space and return. It covers hypersonic gliders, air-breathing and rocket propulsion, thermodynamics and materials, and launch options. It argues that reliable, schedulable access to low Earth orbit is mainly a hardware and propulsion problem rather than a technology one.
UNCLASSIFIED/)' P&R: 8PPI8Itlib Wfi& a•1uc Rocket Powered Hypersonic Glider -.'f.-.. ' -~"-, ·-----.____ ·-----~~ Combined Cycle Airbreather Powered •· Hypersonic Cruiser Figure 4. Hypersonic Rocket-Powered Glider and Hypersonic Air-Breathing Cruiser The second configuration is for air-breathing propulsion systems operating at between mach 6 and mach 14 that require a propulsion-configured vehicle, where the underside of the vehicle is an integral part of the propulsion system (forming most of the air- capturing inlet). This is typified by the lower-right vehicle in Figure 4. The thermally integrated, air-breathing, combined-cycle configuration concept is derived from the McDonnell Douglas (St. Louis) Advanced Design organization. The vehicle concept initially conceived in the late 1950s and early 1960s was an air-breathing propulsion- configured vehicle accelerated by a main rocket in the aft end of the body, as shown in Figure 3. The vehicle's underside is the propulsion system; the engine is in the engine module. Both basic shapes are functions of tau-that is, for a given planform area, the cross- sectional distribution is determined by the volume required. Tau was reported in D. KUchemann's book on supersonic aerodynamics6 as: ( 1) The only configuration discussed in the book in any detail is the rocket-powered hypersonic glider. The hypersonic glider has greater near-term potential to become an operational system, considering the failure of the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) to reach a functional hardware stage. 4 UNCLASSIFIED//&09 OFFIGIPk : ■ '1& O•lklf
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 56 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.