DARPA Falcon Project

The DARPA Falcon Project (Force Application and Launch from Continental United States) is a two-part joint project between the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the United States Air Force (USAF). One part of the program aims to develop a reusable, rapid-strike Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV), and the other is for the development of a launch system capable of accelerating a HCV to cruise speeds, as well as launching small satellites into earth orbit. The latest project to be announced under the Falcon banner is a fighter-sized unmanned aircraft called "Blackswift" which would take off from a runway and accelerate to Mach 6 before completing its mission and landing again. The memo of understanding between DARPA and the USAF on Blackswift — also known as the HTV-3X — was signed in September 2007. If the project gets the US$800 million in funding needed to build two prototypes, it will be designed by the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, with the engines being built by Pratt and Whitney.

Design and development

Past projects

The aim was always to be able to deploy a craft from the USA, which could reach anywhere on the planet within an hour or two. 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 does, rather than taking off from a runway. Originally, the Shuttle itself 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 1957-1963, spaceplanes went black. In the mid 1960s, the CIA began work on a high-Mach spyplane called ISINGLASS. This developed into Rheinberry, a design for a Mach-17 air-launched reconnaissance aircraft, which was later cancelled. Black spending on spaceplanes probably peaked in the 1980s during the Strategic Defense Initiative when Science Dawn, Have Region and Copper Canyon focused efforts on building a spaceplane that could take off from a runway like an aircraft. In 1986, that emerged back into the white world, with President Ronald Reagan's announcement of the National AeroSpace Plane (NASP). When that project was canceled in 1992, the spaceplane efforts went black again, until the USAF announced FALCON in 2003, although FALCON at least initially was aimed to build smaller unmanned vehicles.

According to Henry F. Cooper, who was the Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) under President Reagan, spaceplane projects swallowed $4 billion 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 21^st-century spaceplane project which might emerge under Falcon. He told the United States Congress in 2001 that all the USA had in return for those billions of dollars was "one crashed vehicle, a hangar queen, some drop-test articles and static displays". Others would argue that Falcon — which has been allocated $170 million USD for budget year 2008 — and its predecessors maintain the USA's capability to develop a spaceplane quickly, should the need arise.

FALCON

The FALCON program is a program supported by DARPA and the US Air Force to develop and test hypersonic technologies. The program is to follow a set of flight tests with a series of hypersonic technology vehicles.

The FALCON project includes:

• The X-41 Common Aero Vehicle (CAV) — a common aerial platform for hypersonic ICBMs and cruise missiles, as well as civilian RLVs and ELVs.
• The Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-1 (HTV-1) — a test concept, originally planned to fly in September 2007 now cancelled
• The HTV-2 — to fly in 2008
• The HTV-3 — to fly in 2009
• The HTV-3X — Blackswift
• The Small Launch Vehicle (SLV) — a smaller engine to power CAVs, tests to begin by 2010

The Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV) will be able to fly 9,000 nautical miles (17,000 km) in 2 hours with a payload of 12,000 lb (5,500 kg). It is to fly at a high altitudes and achieve speeds of up to Mach 6.

Test flights are supported by NASA, the Space and Missile Systems Center, Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories and the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Air Vehicles and Space Vehicles Directorates.

Blackswift

The Blackswift is an aircraft capable of supersonic flight being designed by the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works now, together with Boeing and ATK.

The USAF states "The Falcon Blackswift flight demonstration vehicle will be powered by a combination turbine engine and ramjet, an all-in-one power plant. The turbine engine accelerates the vehicle to around Mach 3 before the ramjet takes over and boosts the vehicle up to Mach 6." Dr. Stephen Walker, the Deputy Director of DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, will be coordinating the project. He told the USAF website,

I will also be communicating to Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney on how important it is that we get the technical plan in place… I'm trying to build the bridge at the beginning of the program — to get the communication path flowing.

On one hand, Falcon program has announced the Mach-6 horizontal take-off Blackswift/HTV-3X program. On the other hand, it is launching the HTV-2 off the top of a rocket booster from Vandenberg Air Force Base in December 2008. The HTV-2 is a ten-foot-long glider which will fly across the Pacific to Kwajalein at Mach 20. Falcon seems to be converging from two directions, on the ultimate goal of producing a hypersonic aircraft which can take off and land from a runway in the USA, and be anywhere in the world in an hour or two. FALCON is the latest in a series of USAF/CIA/DARPA/NASA spaceplane projects which go back to the 1950s in various incarnations. Falcon is going down the build-a-little, test-a-little road to developing a Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle. Dr. Walker says,

We need to fly some hypersonic vehicles — first the expendables, then the reusables — in order to prove to decision makers that this isn’t just a dream… We won't overcome the skepticism until we see some hypersonic vehicles flying.

See also

• Aurora
• Rockwell X-30 (National AeroSpace Plane)
• Boeing X-51

References

External links

• Falcon page on Darpa.mil
• Blackswift proposal solicitation on Darpa.mil
• HCV page on Globalsecurity.org
• "Air Drops Dummy Rocket for Darpa's Falcon", Aviation Week,
• "Hypersonics Back in the News" on Defensetech.org
• "Going Hypersonic: Flying FALCON for Defense" and "Air Force Plans Flight Tests Of Hypersonic Vehicle" on Space.com
• "Pentagon Has Far-Reaching Defense Spacecraft in Works", Washington Post, March 16, 2005
• "US hypersonic aircraft projects face change as Congress urges joint technology office", Flight International, 30 May 2006