DARPA continues to pursue development of a hypersonic craft that can travel anywhere in the world in less than an hour, and last week gave the public a glimpse into just what technological areas the agency is focusing on to make that goal a reality.
Among its five primary technology areas of interest, the first listed by DARPA is thermal protection. The failure of DARPA’s hypersonic HTV-2 vehicle over the Pacific last August – which took place after the craft’s skin peeled off about nine minutes into the flight – was blamed on the vehicle’s inability to handle the extreme temperatures encountered during the super-fast flight, among other factors.
