Japan's space agency plans to launch an arrow-shaped airplane at twice the speed of sound high over the Australian outback as early as next month in a crucial test of the country's push to develop a supersonic successor to the retired Concorde.
The test follows a three-year hiatus since the first experimental flight of the unmanned aircraft, dubbed the next-generation supersonic transport, prematurely separated from its booster rocket and crashed into the desert.
"We've made some improvements so that won't happen again," Takaaki Akuto, a spokesman for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, said Tuesday in Tokyo. "This is a pretty important test."
A successful mission will pave the way for additional experiments as JAXA aims to develop a plane that can carry 300 passengers at Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound, making the run from Tokyo to Los Angeles in about four hours. It will also underpin a June agreement between Japan and France to jointly research such a plane over the next three years.
JAXA will launch the experimental craft, piggybacked on a rocket, at Australia's Woomera test range between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, Akuto said.
The rocket will carry the plane to an altitude of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) before releasing it at a speed of Mach 2 to collect information about the plane's aerodynamics. The craft will float back to earth by parachute after the 15 minute flight. (Thanks to CNN via CNSNews for the heads up.)
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