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China looks to hypersonic ski-jump technology for space travel

  • An obsolete way to launch jets from aircraft carriers could hold the key to affordable transport beyond Earth’s atmosphere
  • Chinese scientists declare early success in scale model test at Mach 7, but further experiments will be needed

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Chinese scientists have turned to the earliest method of launching jets from aircraft carriers for a solution to one of the barriers to hypersonic space flight. Photo: Xinhua
Stephen Chenin Beijing
Chinese researchers say they have repurposed the traditional ski-jump method of launching a plane at sea for the hypersonic age, aiming to develop it for easier, safer space travel.
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Wang Yunpeng, an associate professor with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Mechanics in Beijing, and his team used scaled-down versions of an orbital plane – similar to the space shuttle – and a hypersonic carrier to test the method at seven times the speed of sound.

In a paper published in peer-reviewed journal Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica on December 8, the researchers said the results proved ski-jump technology – regarded as obsolete in modern aircraft carriers – could be adapted for orbital launches from near space.

It could also solve a problem that has troubled hypersonic researchers for decades – how to overcome the strong, unpredictable turbulence generated at extremely high speeds and achieve a smooth separation between the carrier platform and the shuttle.

So far, there has been no way to effectively eliminate the risk of the separating vehicles veering off course or even colliding.

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The researchers launched a 1/80 scale plane from a metre-long (three feet) model carrier using a piston to simulate rocket engine ignition as China’s JF-12 wind tunnel powered to Mach 7. In a split second, the plane shot off the top of the carrier and, as the tunnel powered down, it dropped to the floor and broke into several pieces.

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