For the first time, the US Air Force has successfully recovered a reusable rocket sled traveling at hypersonic speed. The test in late March 2022 was part of the Air Force’s Hypersonic Sled Recovery (HSR) project and successfully brought a sled traveling at 5.6 times the speed of sound to a stop.

Hypersonic flight technology has a great potential to revolutionize both military and civilian applications, but research in the field has always been extremely difficult stretching back to NASA’s X-15 rocket plane project in the 1950s and ’60s. One major problem is the intense heat generated in hypersonic flight of over five times the speed of sound. Temperatures can reach in excess of 1,800 °F (1,000 °C), destroying materials, disrupting avionics and flight systems, and putting large amounts of thermal strain on the airframe.

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Because of this, engineers are very keen to study the effects of this heat as well as other factors. However, they don’t get many chances in a post mortem because flight tests that involve dropping missiles from mother ships usually end with the test craft crashing into the ocean and being lost to the watery depths.

Read more: New Atlas