The SCRAMSPACE I Scramjet Flight Experiment- Scientific Rationale And Technical Developments

The SCRAMSPACE I scramjet flight experiment is the flagship of the Australian Space Research Program funded project SCRAMSPACE : Scramjet-based Access-to-Space Systems. The flight experiment is currently being developed to measure, in flight, the performance of a simple axisymmetric inlet-fuelled radical farming scramjet concept. The development includes extensive numerical simulations of the aerothermodynamic and propulsion flowfields, as well as thermal-structural and trajectory simulations, to underpin the configuration. This paper presents aspects of both the science and the technology being pursued to ensure the feasibility of the flight experiment.