Adrift

The Air Force's X-51A Waverider hypersonic vehicle failed yesterday in its attempt to fly at Mach 6 for five minutes, as service officials announced today that the vehicle lasted less than one minute in flight before being lost.

The X-51A was successfully dropped from a B-52 bomber over California's Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center Sea Range yesterday at approximately 11:36 a.m. Pacific time, according to a statement issued today by an Air Force Research Laboratory spokesman. The vehicle separated properly from the B-52, but a fault with one of the cruiser control fins was identified 16 seconds after the drop.

“Once the X-51 separated from the rocket booster, approximately 15 seconds later, the cruiser was not able to maintain control due to the faulty control fin and was lost,” the statement reads.

The Air Force has now launched three of its four Boeing-produced X-51A vehicles. No decision has been made on when or even if the fourth will be tested.

“It is unfortunate that a problem with this subsystem caused a termination before we could light the Scramjet engine,” said Charlie Brink, the Air Force Research Laboratory's X-51A program manager. “All our data showed we had created the right conditions for engine ignition and we were very hopeful to meet our test objectives.”

In its statement, AFRL noted that the control subsystem on this X-51A had “proven reliable”in the Air Force's most successful hypersonic flight to date, a May 2010 test during which the Waverider flew for more than three minutes.