Preparations will begin in October for Italy's second supersonic Unmanned Space Vehicle flight, while talks with Australia have started for a related hypersonic experiment by 2015.
The Unmanned Space Vehicle is an 8m (26.2ft)-long supersonic glider with a 3.5m wingspan, mass of 1,250kg (2,750lb) and is designed to be a flying laboratory. It is contributing to Italian aerospace agency CIRA's database on super and subsonic flight regimes following re-entry.
The first flight in 2007 featured only a nose-up manoeuvre while the second flight planned for December is more complex.
This second flight will broadcast telemetry, reach a maximum speed of Mach 1.2, last 140s and have manoeuvres that will alter the vehicle's angle of attack to replicate windtunnel experiments.
CIRA's head of space programmes Gennaro Russo says that in October they will "start to move equipment to the [vehicle's] Sardinian launch base".
He expects to complete the vehicle's flight readiness review in early December. However the launch window, determined by seasonal weather conditions, is from December to March.
CIRA is also in discussions with Australia's University of Queensland about co-operation on scramjet technology, plasma windtunnel work and co-operation on the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HiFire) Programme. To date HiFire has been a collaboration between the USA and Australia.
The second phase of the CIRA programme is to examine the space vehicle's M6 to M8 regime and HiFire's hypersonic rocket launches could contribute to that. The university and CIRA are to complete a feasibility study by the year's end to examine what could be achieved and to submit proposals to their governments next year.
One idea is to launch 2m-long scale models of the space vehicle on a HiFire rocket for up to 20s of flight at M8 by 2015. The launches could also include supersonic combustor experiments.
Source: Flight International
