ErikStenger
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- Mar 12, 2008
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I was reading about it this morning, it's not actually a plane it's a glider. They are going to send it into space on a Minotaur IV rocket which is powered by decommissioned Peacekeeper ICBM motors. Then it will jettison the UAV and the UAV will adjust for re-entry then glide at 13000 mph making it capable of reaching any point on the globe in under an hour. There is another version of this craft called the HTV-3 that is a horizontal takeoff self powered unit that will be capable of reaching speeds of Mach 6 by switching from standard turbine engines to scramjets at Mach 2ish. This one hasn't been tested yet though. Today's launch vehicle the HTV-2 is more of a payload delivery vehicle, or a really high tech gliding ICBM.
PS today's launch was scrubbed due to weather, it will launch tomorrow per DARPA twitter feed.
https://twitter.com/#!/DARPA_News