Unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 can travel
from London to Sydney in less than an hour:


By the time you finish reading this sentence, the Falcon HTV-2,
the fastest plane ever built, could have flown 18 miles. It would
get from London to Sydney in less than an hour, while
withstanding temperatures of almost 2,000C, hotter than the
melting point of steel.

At 3pm BST on Thursday , the US Defence Advance Research
Projects Agency will launch the Falcon Hypersonic Technology
Vehicle 2 on the back of a rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force
Base in California. If all goes to plan, engineers will launch the
Falcon HTV-2 to the edge of space, before detaching the plane
and guiding it on a hypersonic flight that will reach speeds of
13,000mph (about 20 times the speed of sound) on its return to Earth.

The Falcon started life in 2003, part of a US military research
project to build a plane that could reach (and potentially deliver
bombs to) any part of the world in less than an hour.

The plane has been tested in computer models and wind tunnels,
but they can only simulate speeds up to Mach 15 (11,400mph).
A real test is the only way to determine if the plane will remain
flying at high speeds.

Thursday's flight will also test the carbon composite materials
designed to withstand the extreme temperatures the plane will
experience on its skin and also the navigation systems that will
control its trajectory as it moves at almost four miles per second.

The design and flight pattern of the plane has been tweaked
since an aborted test flight in April last year. Nine minutes into
that mission, which succeeded in flying for 139 seconds at
Mach 22 (16,700mph), the onboard computer detected an
anomaly and ordered the plane to ditch into the ocean for
safety reasons.

Unlike most other rocket launches, this one will not be shown
live online, though it will be possible to follow the plane's
progress via tweets from @DARPA_News.

guardian.co.uk