George Rumford, director of the Test Resource Management Center, speaks at the NSTXL industry day for the MACH-TB 2.0 programme. (NSTXL)
The National Security Technology Accelerator (NSTXL) is preparing to award contracts for the second phase of the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) programme, according to an NSTXL statement on 28 August.
The MACH-TB project, funded through the Strategic and Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems (S 2 MARTS) Other Transaction Authority (OTA), is intended to develop lower-cost hypersonic testbeds to support rapid testing at scale by the US Department of Defense (DoD), Doug Crowe, vice-president of NSTXL and S2MARTS, told Janes on 5 September. The testbeds would enable the rapid testing of various payloads and new materials in hypersonic flight. Right now, it can take more than a year between such tests, he said.
The second phase of the project seeks to design and test an experimental glide body (EGB) “that can accelerate technology and subsystem development and testing, design a modular software/hardware/interface testbed architecture, and leverage existing booster systems to enable the EGB to replicate operational or modified hypersonic trajectories”, according to the NSTXL website.
It aims to bring the initial MACH-TB 1.0 testbed from design and concept demonstration to full flight-test capacity, the website said. The 1.0 programme focused on a modular open-system architecture and multiple launch vehicle capabilities and developed a hypersonic boost glide testbed equipped with an experimental modular glide vehicle.
Potential launch vehicles include sounding and commercial rockets, according to Crowe. MACH-TB 2.0 features a common architecture so that it can be quickly integrated, do the data analytics, and optimise payload integration, he said. The programme calls for acquiring nontraditional and commercial launch vehicles supported by optimised command-and-control, data analytics, and instrumentation systems.
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