QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

The next frontier

Building on the flight experiments performed in the earlier HyShot and current HIFiRE programs, a significant step in this process is being taken by a project called ‘Scramjet-based Access-to Space Systems’, or SCRAMSPACE. During the SCRAMSPACE flight experiment a 1.8m-long spacecraft will be transported to an altitude of 340km by a two-stage rocket. After leaving the atmosphere, the scramjet vehicle will separate from the rocket, and orient itself for re-entry with small thrusters. During the return flight, the vehicle will be accelerated by gravity to Mach 8 – about 8,600km/h – and the scramjet experiment will be performed at an altitude of approximately 30km. SCRAMSPACE Director and Chair for Hyper sonics at UQ Professor Russell Boyce believes that scramjets and hypersonic flight are the next big step for aerospace. “Access to – getting into – space is necessary for the deployment of space-based systems and technologies for communications, remote sensing, climate monitoring and space science,” Professor Boyce said.

“With the work performed by our domestic hypersonics community, including universities, industry and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), Australia is internationally recognised as a world leader in this field of research and development.” Partners in the program include four Australian universities and international aerospace organisations including the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Italian Aerospace Research Center (CIRA), DSTO, the Australian Youth Aerospace Association, and industry partners including BAE Systems Australia, Brisbane firm Teakle Composites Pty Ltd, and Cairns firm AIMTEK Pty Ltd. Fundamental scramjet research has been conducted in UQ’s T4 shock tunnel, as well as the very large shock tunnels at DLR in Göttingen, and at JAXA’s facility near Sendai. DLR has facilitated experiments at its High Enthalpy Shock Tunnel in Göttingen (HEG), a major European hypersonic test facility and one of the largest, most efficient in the world. The length and mass of the HEG tunnel is approximately 80m and 300 tonnes, and can produce air flow velocities at up to 2,5000 km/h. Experiments at HEG have studied the performance of the scramjet design at large scale and, coupled with supercomputer simulations, are answering key questions posed by the technology. Management of extreme thermal loads is the critical engineering pacing item for high speed transportation. The German connection extends to high temperature materials, for which DLR have world-class capability. DLR in Stuttgart is supplying the fins required to stabilise the scramjet vehicle as it descends through the atmosphere, constructing them from an advanced high temperature ceramic material known as Ceramic Matrix Composite. DLR in Braunschweig also contributed analysis of the stability of the vehicle. Finally, DLR’s Mobile Rocket Base (MORABA) will launch the rockets used to boost the scramjet onto its flight trajectory.

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