National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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        t      sPhoenix Missile Hypersonic Testbed

Researchers at NASA’s Dryden FlightResearch Center at Edwards Air ForceBase, Calif., and the Naval Air WarfareCenter Weapons Division, China Lake,Calif., are investigating the use of sur-plus demilitarized Navy AIM-54 Phoenixair-launched missiles as possible hyper-sonic test platforms or testbeds. Hyper-sonic ight is dened as aerodynamicight at speeds of Mach 5 or greater,and use of surplus Phoenix missiles isone of the methods being consideredto obtain critical ight data in the hyper-sonic regime.

These missions, to be conducted overrestricted military test ranges, wouldinvolve launching a missile from aNASA F-15 aircraft ying at speeds upto Mach 2.0, with the missile then ac-celerating to speeds up to Mach 5.0,

depending on its trajectory, before fuelis exhausted. The missiles would carryexperimental research payloads into thehypersonic regime, something that iscurrently difcult to achieve.

The Phoenix missiles used for hyper-sonic research will have their explosivewarheads removed and their trackingand guidance systems replaced witha smaller, more lightweight guidancesystem. The missiles will also be heavilyinstrumented to obtain and transmit testdata from experiments in such areas asthermal protection materials, scramjetpropulsion, guidance & control, bound-ary layer transition and aerodynamics athypersonic speeds.

 At present, NASA is performing design,analysis, and testing leading up to a

ED06-0217-37Phoenix missile mounted under NASA’s F-15B research aircraft

 

Critical Design Review at the end of 2007. Aspart of the preliminary studies, several “captive-carry” ights will be own by the F-15 with aninactive missile with no propellant carried on theaircraft’s centerline pylon to determine the per-formance of the aircraft when carrying the mis-sile. The project has not been funded to conductactual launches to obtain hypersonic ight testdata, and a decision on funding such research isnot expected before 2008.

When in military service, the Phoenix missile wasthe primary long-range air-to-air weapon carriedby the Navy’s now-retired eet of Grumman F-14aircraft. It was the rst operational radar-guidedair-to-air missile that could be launched in multi-ple numbers against different targets from an air-craft. The missile was in operational service withF-14 squadrons from 1974 through its retirementin late 2004. The Navy has no current need forthe remaining supply of Phoenix missiles and is

making several availableto NASA for its hyperson-ic research efforts.

 A Phoenix missile is13 feet long, 15 inches indiameter with a wingspanof 36 inches. It weighsabout 1,000 lbs. in itsmilitary conguration.

Thomas Jones of NASA Dryden Flight ResearchCenter is the principalinvestigator for the devel-opment of the Phoenixmissile hypersonic test-bed. This testbed devel-opment effort is funded

by the Hypersonics Project under the Fundamen-tal Aeronautics Program of NASA’s AeronauticsResearch Mission Directorate.

ED06-0217-06Technicians attach nosecone to Phoenix missile

NASA Facts

Natiional Aeronautics and Space Administration

Dryden Flight Research CenterP.O. Box 273Edwards, CA 93523-0273Voice 661-276-3449 FAX 661-276-3566pao@dfrc.nasa.gov

www.nasa.gov

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