Pentagon To Test 13,000 Mph Aircraft - Falcon HTV 2 Launch From Minotaur IV Lite Rocket

Falcom HTV-2 (Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2) is a DARPA's project being developed over for about a decade that aims at using the critical technologies to make the hypersonic flight a reality, where the ultimate goal has been the ability to maneuver anywhere in the world and eliminate enemies in less than an hour!  DARPA plans to validate their current assumptions about long duration HTV flight for which more than 20 test assets will collect continuous flight data.

To put it simply, Falcon HTV-2 is an unmanned, wedge-shaped, rocket-launched aircraft that can glide through the atmosphere at the speed of approximately 13,000 miles per hour also known as 'Mach 20'.
In the ultimate test that is going to happen today, the Minotaur IV Lite Rocket will be triggered from Vandenberg Air Force Base Station at approx. 7 a.m. PDT. This rocket will release the Falcon HTV-2such that it will come back to Earth & splash down near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
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Apparently, this is Falcon HTV-2's second flight. It had it's first flight on 22 Apr 2010. Engineers at DARPA have discovered that HTV-2 had a problem stabilizing itself in flight. When it tried to correct its yaw, it went into a roll. The lessons learned from the first flight, testing of the high-speed wind tunnel and different computer simulations are used to improve aerodynamic models and to optimize the vehicle design and trajectory for this flight.

“Wind tunnels capture valuable, relevant hypersonic data and can operate for relatively long durations up to around Mach 15. To replicate speeds above Mach 15 generally requires special wind tunnels, called impulse tunnels, which provide milliseconds or less of data per run,” said Air Force Maj. Chris Schulz in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - Content not found, “To have captured the equivalent aerodynamic data from flight one at only a scale representation on the ground would have required years, tens of millions of dollars, and several hundred impulse tunnel tests.” According to Schulz, impulse tunnel testing is required to create a portion of Mach 20 relevant physics on the ground.

It's only a matter of time for us to wait and watch how the flight performs today.