PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF THE USV_2 HYPERSONIC FLIGHT TEST G.Guidotti, G.Pezzella, C.Richiello, G.Russo C.I.R.A., Centro Italiano Ricerche Aerospaziali, Via Maiorise, 81043 Capua, Italy. Email: g.guidotti@cira.it ; g.pezzella@cira.it ; c.richiello@cira.it ; g.russo@cira.it S.C. Tirtey, R.R. Boyce Centre for Hypersonics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia. Email: s.tirtey@uq.edu.au ; russell.boyce@uq.edu.au ABSTRACT This paper describes the activities and the results of the feasibility analysis, performed by CIRA and UQ, of the project Unmanned Space Vehicle USV2 Hypersonic Flight Test (HFT) whose aim is to provide a flight opportunity for acquisition and augmentation of experience on hypersonic flight aspects, such as aerodynamics, GN&C (Guidance Navigation, & Control), and vehicle design. Main mission objectives are to fly the unmanned winged vehicle FTB_4 (Flying Test Bed) at a Mach number ≥6 in the altitude range 10- 60 km for a time greater than 10s in order to perform experimental activities. The USV2 reference mission shall be accomplished from the Woomera Test Range in Australia, being the launch service provided by the Australian Defence Science & Technology Organisation (DSTO) together with DLR MORABA. Figure 1 represents a preliminary sketch-up of the FTB_4 vehicle. An overview of system-level design will be herein given with respect to: mission design, configuration trade-off, aerodynamics and aerothermodynamics development, flight mechanics investigation as well as conceptual definition of vehicle architecture. It is worth to remind that CIRA has already flown two flying test beds of USV1 family [3, 6], namely Castore and Polluce, respectively launched in the 2007 (Castore) and 2010 (Polluce) by means of an atmospheric balloons (see Figure 2 and Figure 3). Flight tests were successful and provided a great amount of scientific data in transonic and low supersonic regime. Furthermore, The University of Queensland (UQ) and DSTO have flown several sounding-rocket-launched hypersonic flight experiments at Woomera in recent years[7]. UQ and CIRA are actively involved under a Heads of Agreement to pursue collaborative hypersonic ground-based and flight-based research, and UQ, CIRA and DSTO are partners (with others) in the international SCRAMSPACE flight experiment. So then, the USV2 project aims at providing an opportunity to further push knowledge and technology development in the field of unmanned vehicles to inject into the process that will bring human race toward development of aero-space- planes [1,4,7]. Figure 1 USV2-FTB_4 wing body configuration Figure 2 USV1 FTB1 Polluce at pre-launch Figure 3 USV1 FTB1 Polluce at launch _________________________________________________ Proc. of ‘7th European Symposium on Aerothermodynamics’, Brugge, Belgium 9–12 May 2011 (ESA SP-692, August 2011)