14-XS was an ''Operação Cruzeiro'' mission conducted at the
Alcantara Launch Center on December 14, 2021.
Mission
Conducted by the
Brazilian Air Force
"Wings that protect the country"
, colours =
, colours_label =
, march = Hino dos Aviadores
, mascot =
, anniversaries = 22 May (anniver ...
, the flight was a test to demonstrate the
scramjet
A scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) is a variant of a ramjet airbreathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow. As in ramjets, a scramjet relies on high vehicle speed to compress the incoming air forcefully ...
technology. The device was launched by a Hypersonic Accelerator Vehicle (based on the
VSB-30
VSB-30 - "''Veículo de Sondagem Booster – 30''" (Booster Sounding Vehicle) or "''Foguete Suborbital VSB-30''" is the designation of a Brazilian sounding rocket, which replaced the Skylark rocket at ''Esrange''.
The VSB-30 is based on the VS- ...
rocket
[) and accelerated to Mach 6 to an altitude of 30 kilometers, from where it continued until it reached a suborbital apogee at an altitude of 160 kilometers and 200 kilometers down range from the launch site, impacting at the Atlantic Ocean.][ The model tested combustion in a hypersonic environment and Mach 6 speed was reached at 50 km.][
Both the Alcântara Launch Center and the ]Barreira do Inferno Launch Center
The Barreira do Inferno Launch Center ( pt, Centro de Lançamento da Barreira do Inferno; CLBI, ) is a rocket launch base of the Brazilian Space Agency. It was created in 1965, and is located near Ponta Negra beach, near Natal, the capital of ...
acted as tracking stations.[ The vehicle was the first with a scramjet engine built in Brazil and reached up to 5,000 hp.]São José dos Campos
São José dos Campos (, meaning Saint Joseph of the Fields) is a major city and the seat of the Municipalities of Brazil, municipality of the same name in the state of São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Brazil. One of the leading industrial and res ...
. The engine has been under development since 2008, with the goal of enabling the Brazilian industry to develop aerospace experiments.
See also
*14-X
The 14-X is a Brazilian scramjet engine in development by the Aerothermodynamics and Hypersonics Laboratory Henry T. Nagamatsu of the Institute of Advanced Studies (IEAv) of the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology as part of the ''Pr ...
*Brazilian space program
The Brazilian space program is the rocketry and space exploration programs conducted by Brazil from 1961 until the creation of the Brazilian Space Agency in 1994. It had significant capabilities in launch vehicles, launch sites, and satellite m ...
References
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2021 in spaceflight
December 2021 events in Brazil
Suborbital spaceflight
Test spaceflights
Space program of Brazil