Hypersonic test facilities: requirements analysis and preliminary design

There has come about, in recent years, a renewed interest in aerospace vehicles operating in the hypersonic regime. With this interest has come a need to not only reestablish the hypersonic test capability that was available in the 1960s but to enhance this capability to meet the demanding needs of today's proposed vehicles. This will require more capable hypersonic wind tunnels with larger test sections, longer run times, and test gases more closely resembling the fluid to be encountered by the vehicle being developed. This document will review the current hypersonic testing capability, examine the operating characteristics of several hypersonic vehicles to develop a set of hypersonic testing requirements, and develop a preliminary design of a required hypersonic facility that addresses the demonstrated requirements. An order of magnitude cost estimate is also presented.