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Paris, 6 of June 2003

NAL/NASDA flight demonstrator undergoes drop tests
from CNES balloons

Starting from 6 June, CNES will be conducting several stratospheric
balloon flights from the Kiruna launch base in Sweden for the
purposes of a particularly innovative mission: to perform drop tests
from an altitude of 30 kilometres on a flight prototype developed by
NAL, the japanese aerospace laboratory, and NASDA, the Japanese space
agency. 

The flight prototype is a 500-kilogram, quarter-scale model of
Japan's HOPE-X spaceplane. Each flight will take the prototype to an
altitude of 30 kilometres on a CNES stratospheric balloon. The
prototype will then be released in free fall and analysis will focus
on the transonic flight phase between 20 and 10 kilometres, at which
it will reach a speed of Mach 1. The flight will end with a soft
parachute landing, cushioned by airbags. Japan and France will share
the data gathered from the flight tests, and CNES intends to work
with the French aerospace agency ONERA and industrial firms such as
EADS and Dassault on the project. 

Three or four flights are planned, depending on weather conditions.
This flight test campaign in Kiruna is scheduled to last from early
June to mid-July, when atmospheric conditions are right to loft
balloons to altitudes of around 30 kilometres and perform drop tests
safely. 

This High Speed Flight Demonstrator 2 project (HSFD 2) was defined at
the CNES/NASDA symposium in Tokyo, Japan, in February 1999, then in
Paris, France, in June of the same year, within the framework of
French-Japanese cooperation on future launch vehicles. The project
will further strengthen partnership ties with Japan and allow both
nations to acquire experience on a spacecraft built by Japan and
launched by CNES, until Japan's HOPE-X spaceplane project gets fully
underway. 

NAL and NASDA have already completed subsonic flight tests with
ALFLEX and hypersonic flight phases with HYFLEX, and have tested
extreme aerodynamic heating with OREX and landing with HSFD 1 last
automn. HSFD 2 aims to acquire data during the transonic flight phase
that will help to refine system design tools and methodologies for
controlling flight of re-entry vehicles with limited handling
qualities during transonic flight regimes. 

CNES's participation in HSFD 2 will enable significant progress
towards this requirement, irrespective of the aerodynamic shape
NAL/NASDA finally selects for the spaceplane. Cooperation will be
achieved through in-kind exchanges, with NAL and NASDA developing the
flight vehicle, and CNES's balloon team managing the launch. In
return, CNES will receive data from all flight tests.

For more information, contact:

CNES Media Relations - Julien Guillaume - Phone +33 ( )01 44 76 76
83 - julien.guillaume{at}cnes.fr

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