Chinese Hypersonic Reusable aerospace vehicle tested in February 2018?

[antigravite]

Hi,

New information kicked off from the South China Morning Post, now spreading like wildfire. Very cluttered.
This new thread likely to be merged with an already existing one when we understand a little better what's going on.

China seems to have flown-tested a new, "scaled-down" Mach 5, unmanned hypersonic vehicle sometimes in February 2018, from Jiuquan.
I still don't understand if this piece of information refers to their reece/strike thinggy or if they now pave the way for an airbreathing TSTO — which would be very unlikely based on what we know / understand about winged TSTO efficiency (no need to launch at hypersonic speeds).

Very puzzling… One starting point:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/28c95de2-c5fe-3df1-9c37-0f91e97f200b/ss_china-launches-scaled-down.html

A.

 

[Michel Van]

From the link

The hypersonic space drone lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Inner Mongolia, accelerated to more than five times the speed of sound and reached orbital altitude before returning safely to ground, according to a researcher with knowledge of the experiment.

sound to me as Suborbital test, either with model on top of a rocket or small unmanned test vehicle with engines

 

[antigravite]

From the link

The hypersonic space drone lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Inner Mongolia, accelerated to more than five times the speed of sound and reached orbital altitude before returning safely to ground, according to a researcher with knowledge of the experiment.

sound to me as Suborbital test, either with model on top of a rocket or small unmanned test vehicle with engines

Might be Aotian-2 but I'm not sure yet. China is engaged in so many ongoing aerospace / winged and related hypersonic "activities". So many!

A.

 

[antigravite]

Hi,

as it seems, there has been a follow up. A new kind of winged reusable vehicle has just been flown tested on a suborbital flight path, over 220km.

More info: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...sful-suborbital-test-of-a-reusable-spaceplane

A

 

[TomcatViP]

China launches secretive suborbital vehicle for reusable space transportation system

China launches secretive suborbital vehicle for reusable space transportation system

spacenews.com

 

[Archibald]

Congrats to them, they have reinvented both X-15 and X-37 many, many years late.

 

[antigravite]

Congrats to them, they have reinvented both X-15 and X-37 many, many years late.

I doubt that. Not in today's strategic context. Saw a few days ago andother hypersonic project studies that might be related, a hypersonic airbreathing over-under configuration. I'll expand on that later. PRC pushes real hard on hypersonics.

A.

 

[sferrin]

Congrats to them, they have reinvented both X-15 and X-37 many, many years late.

I doubt that. Not in today's strategic context. Saw a few days ago andother hypersonic project studies that might be related, a hypersonic airbreathing over-under configuration. I'll expand on that later. PRC pushes real hard on hypersonics.

A.

Only way to make progress. The US used to know this.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Congrats to them, they have reinvented both X-15 and X-37 many, many years late.

It’s not an X-15. It is an sub orbital carrier spacecraft designed to carry an orbital rocket. It is more like the DARPA XS-1.