Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) propulsion engineers completed a series of successful experiments demonstrating industry partner Aerojet's combined-cycle integrated inlet, an enabling technology for the integrated turbine-based combined-cycle (TBCC) engines that will ultimately advance hypersonic cruise and operationally responsive space access platforms.
Engineers conducted the novel tests at NASA's Glenn Research Center as an extension of earlier, high-Mach tests performed at NASA's Langley Research Center. Completed as part of AFRL's multidisciplinary Robust Scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) program and in partnership with the NASA Fundamental Aeronautics Program's Hypersonic Project, their transonic wind tunnel tests of this highly operable inlet will increase critical understanding of TBCC engine operation and performance capacity. The first such experimentation of its kind, the AFRL-led test activity measured subsonic through combined-cycle propulsion mode transition and collected 8,000 data points for an integrated TBCC inlet.
