Ajax (Ayaks) hypersonic vehicles with MHD propulsion

Re: Ajax hypersonic vehicles with MHD propulsion

Mr London 24/7 said:
If you're saying you have corrections on Ajax to add to the topic I don't see anyone particularily pushed for time...
I've been privileged to be a direct witness of this episode. Therefore, it took me about 30mn to read through the entire thesis, and make sure it was not representative of what I actually saw, understood and accessed. Parts of my studies were related to History of Science & Technology so the conceptual blah blah, I knew it already, meaning I did not skip it, I understood very fast the authors' point. And no, I won't expand on what is missing, and/or misrepresentative of what I witnessed.
A.
 
Russian Ayaks Programme

The Russian Ayaks Programme was for the development of a wave rider reconnaissance aircraft in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Started under Soviet control and continued under Russian control.

Wikipedia has an interesting article on it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaks.

Does anybody have more information on it?
 
Re: Russian Ayaks Programme

Ah, I searched under "ayaks" not the translation, "ajax"! Thanks.
 
A couple of more articles on that development:

 
I'd be interested in receiving the following by DM:

Julian M. Tishkoff, "1996-2011: When the US Air Force Invaded Russia", AIAA 2021-0516, History of Aeronautics I - Published Online:4 Jan 2021


abstract: "In the period 1996-2011 the United States Air Force engaged in an unclassified basic research collaboration with academic and research institutions in the former Soviet Union, including Russia and Ukraine, to study phenomena associated with plasma aerodynamics, the application of weakly ionized plasmas to improve the propulsion and aerodynamic performance of aerospace vehicles. This concept had been introduced into the open literature in a 1994 Russian publication describing a novel hypersonic vehicle, Ayaks. The Air Force subsequently provided funding for this research through two international organizations whose mission is the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, The International Science and Technology Center and The Civilian Research and Development Foundation. Research was structured in four focused topics: aerodynamics, ignition and combustion enhancement, magneto gas dynamics, and plasma generation. Teams of investigators in these topics were organized in both Russia and the United States, with international collaboration and open reviews conducted semi-annually. In the United States these reviews were held primarily at AIAA meetings. This activity was unique and is not likely to be repeated in the foreseeable future."

A.
 
This Ajax model apparently on display at Farnborough in 1998 looks nothing like any of the others designs. Some of the (poorly auto-translated) text that went with the photo:

"Domestic development - VKS "Ajax" seems more exotic. Nevertheless, it is much more promising than Skylon. The project is being worked on by the “Institute for Research of Hypersonic Systems (MSRI)”, a branch of the St. Petersburg holding company “Leninets” under the leadership of A. Freistadt. The concept was first discussed in the late 1980s, and more often with great skepticism: an unknown Leningrad engineer proposed a whole class of fundamentally new hypersonic and aerospace aircraft based on, as it is now fashionable to say, “revolutionary” design principles."

"Ajax is an open aerothermodynamic system that converts the energy of a hypersonic free flow into work. The authors of the concept propose to reconsider many aspects of the development of [video conferencing](?) of the future. In general terms, the energy exchange goes like this: hydrocarbon fuel (kerosene), passing through channels in the hottest spots of the aircraft (the nose of the fuselage, the leading edges of the wing and the engine combustion chamber), is heated and, through catalysts, decomposes into hydrogen and hydrocarbons with a lower molecular weight. Hydrogen is used in a magnetohydrodynamic converter (MHD generator) to generate electricity used to control the air flow in the inlet circuit of a hypersonic ramjet with supersonic combustion, in which hydrocarbons are burned. The thrust-to-weight ratio of such an engine can be many times higher than this parameter of conventional jet engines, and the resulting electrical energy also goes into the plasma control system for lift and drag of the VKS."
 

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So - any chance it was ever workable OR - was it just hype and false hopes in the end ?
 
So - any chance it was ever workable OR - was it just hype and false hopes in the end ?
I'm 100% sure it's a real black project. If you go as far as arresting your top scientists actively working on the program it must be something special...which it is. Such aircraft, if it met it's design goals, would be a total revolution in everything Russia is pursuing, from space capable SSTO shuttles to hypersonic recon aircraft. It would allow Russia unmatched access to space and almost invincible second-strike platform for nukes if made into a bomber.
 
'Actively working on program' lolwat
 
'Actively working on program' lolwat
As in working on the Ayaks program, as a whole. It's still active, at least as of 2021 it was. Something so promising wouldn't be dropped by the Russians, not when they somehow ended up with #1 Hypersonic Technology in the world.
 
That's how so promising hypersonic business was blooming with outstanding earnings of $110K and book profit of less than $200 in 2018.
 
That's how so promising hypersonic business was blooming with outstanding earnings of $110K and book profit of less than $200 in 2018.
If It's a secret project it wouldn't be publically disclosed how much it costs, would it? Such information would give away too much.
Same case with US black budget projects that may or may not exist.
Perhaps we may never know. There's definitely some shady stuff going on in Russia related to hypersonic aircraft and possible SSTOs.
 
"The truth is out there" - Fox Mulder. More seriously : cool down a little. MHD as a "solution" to the RLV / TSTO / SSTO conundrum has been there for a very long time. My old self was reading about Ayaks in Air & Cosmos circa 2002, and MHD was already part of the aerospaceplane studies 40 years before that... in 1962 ! Demetriades nuclear-MHD PROFAC comes to mind.
 
So - any chance it was ever workable OR - was it just hype and false hopes in the end ?
My unqualified opinion? No way. I can't imagine a workable MHD propulsion system for aircraft or spacecraft is possible today, let alone 25 years ago. I'm not an aerospace engineer, but I do follow the astrophysical MHD research and have a working knowledge. I also have a lovely portrait of Alfven here somewhere. His smirk always cracks me up. So my issues aren't with the design or concept of MHD propulsion, they're about the interaction of these engines with the atmosphere. I know how much we didn't know about this just a few years ago.

We're really just starting to understand the dynamic electromagnetic medium that exists right above our heads. Well, it starts way under our feet with the geomagnetic field and extends up through the atmosphere to a constantly shifting point of contact with the interplanetary magnetic field generated by the sun. The shoving match between them is the source of the dynamic variability I'm talking about. This was particularly true this year, as we all got to experience a Solar Maximum worthy of the title.

We're just starting to understand that this IS a medium. Our ability to measure the properties of the geomagnetic field in real time and in local space has increased vastly, and what we see is not what we expected. It is nothing like the model I was taught in school. This is exciting! But "variable", "turbulent" do not adequately convey the temperament of the electromagnetic environment we observe as we start moving up from the surface of the earth, and that's the environment an Ayaks-type aircraft would be operating in. (There's quite a bit more variability AT the surface of the earth than previously understood as well, see gif).

Imagine the difficulty of operating a standard jet engine if the basic physical properties of the atmosphere (density, temperature, pressure) each varied by WIDE margins, both in local space and over time, and were not quite so predictably tethered to altitude (yeah, bit of a simplification). Imagine if today the atmospheric pressure is x at 12,000 ft, but tomorrow it's 2x, or it starts the day at x, then spends an hour at 3x, before dropping back to x. So in addition to all of the standard aerodynamic variables, an aircraft employing an MHD drive would have to navigate the electromagnetic variability of this other, far more dynamic medium.

What I've read of the Ayaks (and other MHD designs) describes a system dependent on a fairly static electromagnetic environment to operate, which of course was our model until recently. Now let me change course and say that I do think some kind of MHD propulsion system will probably be workable at some point. I definitely see the possibilities for generating energy. All of this new research just gives us a better picture of what we're dealing with and how we can harness the huge amounts of energy being blasted into the geomagnetic field by the sun at all times. But an aircraft that could safely, consistently exploit these things to power flight 25 years ago? Very hard to believe. All of the tantalizing possibilities I just described would have been obvious back then, but with far less appreciation of the complexities of actually making it work.

I think MHD engines are kind of like scramjets, but several decades younger. We've known HOW to scramjet for like 80 years, but actually building them has been a lot more complicated. For (mostly) good reasons. The knowledge we've gained in the meantime was necessary, though difficult to fully appreciate before the attempt. I think this will also be true of MHD propulsion systems.

(This animation shows an extreme event, not a normal day's variability. Although events like this are expected throughout the solar cycle, not just at solar maximum.)
 

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In a report i've read somewhere (it was a Russian source), Russian engineers didn't really find a problem with the thing you are describing. High altitude hypersonic weapons (Zircon, Avangard) didn't face any issues whatsoever. They speculated shifting electromagnetic fields and the extreme enviroments in upper atmosphere (Mesosphere and Thermosphere) might affect guidance and communications, but that didn't happen. As such it can be assumed Ayaks or other MHD projects wouldn't (don't) really have any physical problems, as their working principle is using electricity generated by plasma (ionized air) to generate thrust and onboard electricity. As such MHD generators are physically possible, it's the technical aspect (such as superconductors) that's the difficult part now.
 
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