DARPA releases video of HTV-2 hypersonic glider flight

August 26, 2011 – CALIFORNIA - An unmanned glider streaks over the Pacific Ocean at 20 times the speed of sound in a video released Thursday by a U.S. defense research agency experimenting with technology that could give the military the ability to strike any part of the globe within an hour. The Aug. 11 test ended early when a problem caused the craft’s safety system to force it down into the ocean but the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said valuable data was collected in the nearly three minutes of free flight at the hypersonic speed of Mach 20 – about 13,000 mph. The Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle-2 was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., atop a Minotaur 4 rocket that carried it to the edge of space, performed what DARPA described as a series of aggressive banks and turns, and then released the glider. The Darpa simulation speed comparison “gives us a visceral feel for what it means to fly at Mach 20,” DARPA Director Regina Dugan said in a statement. Hypersonic is the term for speeds greater than Mach 5. Various hypersonic programs have typically produced brief flights – measured in seconds or minutes. This month’s test was the second of two missions in DARPA’s HTV-2 program, which is aimed at learning how to fly at such speeds and advancing the technologies needed for long-duration hypersonic flight.