NASA Blows Up Out-of-Control Rocket

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The plan was for the Pegasus rocket to drop from a B-52 bomber, ignite, and ferry the jet to 95,000 feet. There the jet would start its engine and travel under its own power for less than 10 seconds.

But just after the Pegasus' engine fired and it began its ascent, the rocket began to fly out of control. It was ordered destroyed 51 seconds after being released from the belly of the B-52 and detonated several hundred miles off the California coast, NASA said.

``They had to terminate it. It has a predetermined trajectory and it was going off that,' National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokeswoman Leslie Williams said.

The booster and jet were presumed destroyed in the explosion, which occurred at about 24,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

``It blew apart. There are some residual flames. It's going straight down,' said NASA pilot Gordon Fullerton as he watched the explosion from a F-18 chase aircraft.

Within hours, NASA began assembling a team to investigate.

``The vehicle was very highly instrumented so we are hopeful and confident that we will have a lot of data to analyze and to reconstruct what happened,' said Kevin Petersen, director of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center.

Once launched, the X-43A was designed to fire its specialized engine - called a scramjet - and fly under its own power for 10 seconds, covering about 17 miles. It was designed to coast to the water.

The X-43A is designed to rely on an air-breathing engine while flying independently. The plane would carry a small amount of hydrogen for fuel, but scoop oxygen out of the atmosphere to combust it. Conventional rockets must carry both fuel and an oxidant to burn it.

NASA had hoped the plane would reach speeds approaching Mach 7 during its fleeting flight, besting the Mach 6.7 record set by the rocket-powered X-15 in 1967. It would have been the first time an air-breathing plane flew at hypersonic speeds, or faster than Mach 5.

The loss was a blow to NASA's $185 million program to develop scramjet technology that could herald a future generation of cheap, reusable spacecraft.

The jet was to have been the first of three X-43A flights over the next 18 months. NASA has a second experimental craft, but it was not immediately clear when it could fly.

``We are obviously disappointed in this, but we're going to find out what happened, fix it and fly again successfully,' said Vince Rausch, the X-43A program manager.

Although none of the planes will be recovered, data collected during the flights will be used to build future planes perhaps 200 feet in length. The first piloted prototypes may fly by 2025.

Backers of the technology say air-breathing hypersonic propulsion could help space travel by reducing the need to carry an oxidant aboard, freeing up room for extra cargo.

The plane used in Saturday's flight was built by MicroCraft Inc. of Tullahoma, Tenn. The second plane is at Edwards Air Force Base, 60 miles north of Los Angeles, and a third is being built.

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