NASA probes destruction of experimental X-34A.

LOS ANGELES, June 7 (Reuters) – NASA has formed a team of investigators to examine why the prototype of an aircraft billed as the future of space exploration and its booster rocket veered out of control on its maiden flight, a spokesman said on Thursday.
Controllers were forced to destroy the prototype and the rocket as they corkscrewed crazily through the sky.
The unmanned X-43A prototype – part of a $185 million program built around a hypersonic “scramjet” engine designed to drive it at seven times the speed of sound – was being carried aloft by a Pegasus booster rocket on Saturday when they began flying out of control.
“The mated X-43A and its booster rocket went out of control about 8 seconds after the ignition of the Pegasus motor,” NASA said in a statement.
Mission controllers used explosives on the booster rocket to destroy both craft, which fell in pieces into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern California.
Scientists had predicted that the scramjet’s maiden flight would represent an aviation breakthrough as historic as the Wright Brothers’ first flight, because it was powered by a hypersonic engine some 40 years in the making.
The X-43A was designed to scoop oxygen from the atmosphere and combine it with hydrogen for its fuel, eliminating the need for it to carry its own oxygen supply. That weight savings that would allow it to fly farther or carry heavier payloads.
The scramjet engine could eventually fly at Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound.
Currently the fastest “air-breathing” jet is the SR-71 Blackbird, which flies at Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound. NASA has said it will give investigators as much time as they need to conclude their probe.

© Reuters Limited 2001

Source: REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 07/06/2001