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DARPA Falcon Project
The DARPA FALCON Project (Force Application and Launch from Continental United States) was a two-part joint project between the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the United States Air Force (USAF) and is part of Prompt Global Strike. The first part of the project aimed to develop a Small Launch System (SLS) capable of accelerating hypersonic gliding weapons as well as launching small satellites into Earth orbit. The second part of the project aimed to develop Hypersonic Weapon Systems (HWS): a short term high performance hypersonic gliding weapon previously named the X-41 Common Aero Vehicle (CAV) that could be launched from Expendable Launch Vehicles (ELV), Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs), Hypersonic Cruise Vehicles (HCV), or Space Maneuvering Vehicles (SMP), and a long term hypersonic cruise aircraft named the Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV). This two-part program was announced in 2003 and continued into 2006.
Current research under Falcon project is centered on the flight tests of boost-glide technological demonstrators HTV-1 and HTV-2 for the development of the X-41 Common Aero Vehicle (CAV) and HTV-3 for the Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV). The technological demonstrator Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) first flew on 22 April 2010; the second test flew 11 August 2011 reaching Mach 20. Both flights ended prematurely.
The HTV-3X Blackswift, derived from HTV-3, was a technological demonstrator of the HCV which would take off from a runway and accelerate to Mach 6 (7,400 km/h; 4,600 mph) before completing its mission and landing again. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) between DARPA and the USAF on Blackswift was signed in September 2007. The Blackswift HTV-3X did not receive needed funding and was canceled in October 2008.
The aim was always to be able to deploy a craft from the continental United States, which could reach anywhere on the planet within one to two hours. The X-20 Dyna-Soar in 1957 was the first publicly acknowledged program—although this would have been launched vertically on a rocket and then glided back to Earth, as the Space Shuttle did, rather than taking off from a runway. Originally, the Shuttle was envisaged as a part-USAF operation, and separate military launch facilities were built at Vandenberg AFB at great cost, though never used. After the open DynaSoar USAF program from 1957 to 1963, spaceplanes went black (became highly classified). In the mid-1960s, the CIA began work on a high-Mach spyplane called Project Isinglass. This developed into Rheinberry, a design for a Mach-17 air-launched reconnaissance aircraft, which was later canceled.
According to Henry F. Cooper, who was the Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") under President Reagan, spaceplane projects consumed $4 billion of funding in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (excluding the Space Shuttle). This does not include the 1950 and 1960s budgets for the Dynasoar, ISINGLASS, Rheinberry, and any 21st-century spaceplane project which might emerge under Falcon. He told the United States Congress in 2001 that all the United States had in return for those billions of dollars was "one crashed vehicle, a hangar queen, some drop-test articles and static displays". Falcon was allocated US$170 million for budget year 2008.
The HyperSoar was an American hypersonic aircraft project developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). It was to be capable of flying at around Mach 12 (6,700 mph), allowing it to transit between any two points on the globe in under two hours. The HyperSoar was predicted to be a passenger plane capable of skipping outside the atmosphere to prevent it from burning up in the atmosphere. A trip from Chicago to Tokyo (10,123 kilometers) would take 18 skips, or 72 minutes. It was planned to use hydrocarbon-based engines outside the atmosphere and experimental jet engine technology. and in 2002 it was combined with the USAF X-41 Common Aero Vehicle to form the FALCON program.
The overall FALCON (Force Application and Launch from CONtinental United States) program announced in 2003 had two major components: a small launch vehicle for carrying payloads to orbit or launching the hypersonic weapons platform payload, and the hypersonic vehicle itself.
The DARPA FALCON solicitation in 2003 asked for bidders to do development work on proposed vehicles in a first phase of work, then one or more vendors would be selected to build and fly an actual launch vehicle. Companies which won first phase development contracts of $350,000 to $540,000 in November 2003 included:
Hub AI
DARPA Falcon Project AI simulator
(@DARPA Falcon Project_simulator)
DARPA Falcon Project
The DARPA FALCON Project (Force Application and Launch from Continental United States) was a two-part joint project between the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the United States Air Force (USAF) and is part of Prompt Global Strike. The first part of the project aimed to develop a Small Launch System (SLS) capable of accelerating hypersonic gliding weapons as well as launching small satellites into Earth orbit. The second part of the project aimed to develop Hypersonic Weapon Systems (HWS): a short term high performance hypersonic gliding weapon previously named the X-41 Common Aero Vehicle (CAV) that could be launched from Expendable Launch Vehicles (ELV), Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs), Hypersonic Cruise Vehicles (HCV), or Space Maneuvering Vehicles (SMP), and a long term hypersonic cruise aircraft named the Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV). This two-part program was announced in 2003 and continued into 2006.
Current research under Falcon project is centered on the flight tests of boost-glide technological demonstrators HTV-1 and HTV-2 for the development of the X-41 Common Aero Vehicle (CAV) and HTV-3 for the Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV). The technological demonstrator Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) first flew on 22 April 2010; the second test flew 11 August 2011 reaching Mach 20. Both flights ended prematurely.
The HTV-3X Blackswift, derived from HTV-3, was a technological demonstrator of the HCV which would take off from a runway and accelerate to Mach 6 (7,400 km/h; 4,600 mph) before completing its mission and landing again. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) between DARPA and the USAF on Blackswift was signed in September 2007. The Blackswift HTV-3X did not receive needed funding and was canceled in October 2008.
The aim was always to be able to deploy a craft from the continental United States, which could reach anywhere on the planet within one to two hours. The X-20 Dyna-Soar in 1957 was the first publicly acknowledged program—although this would have been launched vertically on a rocket and then glided back to Earth, as the Space Shuttle did, rather than taking off from a runway. Originally, the Shuttle was envisaged as a part-USAF operation, and separate military launch facilities were built at Vandenberg AFB at great cost, though never used. After the open DynaSoar USAF program from 1957 to 1963, spaceplanes went black (became highly classified). In the mid-1960s, the CIA began work on a high-Mach spyplane called Project Isinglass. This developed into Rheinberry, a design for a Mach-17 air-launched reconnaissance aircraft, which was later canceled.
According to Henry F. Cooper, who was the Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") under President Reagan, spaceplane projects consumed $4 billion of funding in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (excluding the Space Shuttle). This does not include the 1950 and 1960s budgets for the Dynasoar, ISINGLASS, Rheinberry, and any 21st-century spaceplane project which might emerge under Falcon. He told the United States Congress in 2001 that all the United States had in return for those billions of dollars was "one crashed vehicle, a hangar queen, some drop-test articles and static displays". Falcon was allocated US$170 million for budget year 2008.
The HyperSoar was an American hypersonic aircraft project developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). It was to be capable of flying at around Mach 12 (6,700 mph), allowing it to transit between any two points on the globe in under two hours. The HyperSoar was predicted to be a passenger plane capable of skipping outside the atmosphere to prevent it from burning up in the atmosphere. A trip from Chicago to Tokyo (10,123 kilometers) would take 18 skips, or 72 minutes. It was planned to use hydrocarbon-based engines outside the atmosphere and experimental jet engine technology. and in 2002 it was combined with the USAF X-41 Common Aero Vehicle to form the FALCON program.
The overall FALCON (Force Application and Launch from CONtinental United States) program announced in 2003 had two major components: a small launch vehicle for carrying payloads to orbit or launching the hypersonic weapons platform payload, and the hypersonic vehicle itself.
The DARPA FALCON solicitation in 2003 asked for bidders to do development work on proposed vehicles in a first phase of work, then one or more vendors would be selected to build and fly an actual launch vehicle. Companies which won first phase development contracts of $350,000 to $540,000 in November 2003 included: