HTV-2 13,000 mph Hypersonic Glider DARPA LEAKED

  • il y a 8 ans
An ultra-fast U.S. military drone that streaked across the sky at 13,000 mph and met its demise in the Pacific was doomed by the excessive heat of hypersonic travel, which literally peeled away the drone's metal skin, military officials have revealed.

A seven-month study by the military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has found that the so-called Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) amazingly recovered from shockwaves that forced it to roll while traveling at Mach 20 (about 20 times the speed of sound) in an August 2011 test. But the unmanned aircraft was unable to cope with damage to its exterior caused by its extreme speed, DARPA officials said.

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