The Huairou JF-22 ultra-high-speed wind tunnel of the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences will be completed in 2022. As the cradle for the development of a new generation of aircraft, the JF-22 ultra-high-speed wind tunnel can reproduce an altitude of 40 km to 100 km and a speed of up to 10 km per second, flight conditions equivalent to about 30 times the speed of sound, according to China CCTV report on August 22.
Jiang Zonglin, a researcher at the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the head of the Huairou shock wave wind tunnel project, pointed out that one of the most basic ideas of the JF-22 wind tunnel is to go to the sky and earth to and from the system, which can reduce the cost of satellite launches and spacecraft launches by 90%.
The new hypersonic aircraft shown in the report can reach up to Mach 12, which is more than 4,000 meters per second. The text next to it shows the words “Inspiratory Power”, “Maneuvering Flight”, and “Global Reach”.
The Chinese DF-17 missile is the first supersonic weapon in service with a speed of up to Mach 20. And this mysterious space shuttle has canard wings and a small plane on its tail. It has a maximum speed of Mach 25, which is 25 times the speed of sound, about 8.5 kilometers per second.
Jiang Zonglin said that “if a hypersonic vehicle is made, for example, 5 times to 10 times the speed of sound in the atmosphere, it will be reachable anywhere in the world within an hour or two.”
Prior to this, on July 16, China’s suborbital reusable vehicle flight demonstration and verification project achieved a successful first flight, laying the foundation for the development of China’s reusable space transportation technology and taking the first step towards achieving innovative development and independent control in the field.
The relevant report is only text, without any pictures. The official Douyin account “China Military Industry” of the Press and Propaganda Center of the China National Defense Science and Industry Bureau said in response to project-related news on July 17 that it was too advanced and thus inconvenient to display.
China also launched a reusable test spacecraft on September 4, 2020. At that time, this spacecraft was alleged to be related to the “Shenlong” aerospace aircraft, which is considered to be the counterpart of the U.S. X-37B spaceplane.