The jet engine for nuclear hypersonic weapons surprises with its powerful power
The US Air Force makes no secret that the future of aviation is flying vehicles that will be able to achieve hypersonic speeds. Thanks to this, hitting any target on Earth will proceed at a staggering pace.
As the Russian army tests nuclear propulsion in its long-range nuclear weapons, Americans are experimenting with next-generation jet engines. One of the concerns that revealed the results of its work is Northrop Grumman. The first jet engine we could see in action was the iconic SR-71 Blackbird, which was used in aviation between 1964 and 1998. At that time it was a truly futuristic construction, and its record-breaking performance has not been beaten to this day by any mass-produced aircraft.
Soon, however, this will change, thanks to the successor of the SR-71 and a new hypersonic weapon. USAF is probably preparing an unmanned vehicle based on the ScramJet jet drive, created for the needs of the X-51 program. The drone during the tests reached 6200 km/h, which was much higher than the SR-71, but it was also a slightly different design.
Northrop Grumman decided to modify this drive for new hypersonic vehicles. The effect of over 2 years of work is an extremely efficient drive, which is up to twice as efficient as that of the X-51 program. The engine is 5.5 meters long, generates a thrust of 16,000 pounds and has up to 10 times more airflow compared to the X-51 version.
It may seem that this is not enough, because the ordinary GE9X engine for the new powerful passenger Boeing 777-9X has a thrust of 100 thousand pounds, but in the case of a jet engine, we are talking here about a thrust at a speed of over 6000 km/h, not 800 km/h.
What's most interesting, according to unofficial information, the new ScramJet jet drive from Northrop Grumman will allow to accelerate new, futuristic aircraft, built and tested by the United States Air Force, including in Zone 51, up to a speed of up to 30,000 km/h.
How does such a drive work? An inlet supersonic jet engine diffuser enters the air stream at a speed exceeding the speed of sound and is slowed down, compressed, and part of its kinetic energy turns into heat, causing a rise in temperature. Then fuel is added in the combustion chamber, which burns in the stream still moving at supersonic speed, causing its temperature to increase further. In the expanding outlet nozzle, the stream expands, cools and accelerates. The thrust is directly the effect of the pressure system inside the engine, and its value is proportional to the change in the unit of time the amount of movement flowing through the air engine.
Recently, USAF representatives announced that new aircraft are to be anywhere on the planet and bomb them with nuclear weapons in less than an hour. At the moment, this is not available not only for aircraft and ballistic missiles, but also for space rockets.
The new ScramJet jet drive in US vehicles is also a response to the actions of Russia and China, which are also developing such hypersonic technologies and intend to implement them in the next few years. Well, before our eyes the skirmishes between the powers and the muscular tension begin to take on a terrifying face.