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The North American X-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the X-plane series of experimental aircraft.
The X-15 was a follow-on research aircraft to the early X-planes, which had explored the flight regime from just below the speed of sound (Mach 1) to Mach 3.2. In 1952 the NACA had begun preliminary research into space flight and associated problems.
X-15: The World's Fastest Rocket Plane and the Pilots who Ushered in the Space Age, by John Anderson and Richard Passman. This first flight was the beginning of one of the most spectacular test programs of one of the most spectacular airplanes in history.
The X-15 was a research scientist’s dream. The experimental, rocket-boosted aircraft flew 199 flights with 12 different pilots at the controls from 1959 through 1968.
Composed of an internal structure of titanium and a skin surface of a chrome-nickel alloy known as Inconel X, the X-15 had its first, unpowered glide flight on June 8, 1959, while the first powered flight took place on September 17, 1959.
North American X-15A-2. Hypersonic Research Aircraft. The X-15 is a famous and significant part of aviation history. Its purpose was to fly high and fast, testing the machine and subjecting pilots to conditions that future astronauts would face.
The X-15 and other X-planes are more than a historical legacy for NASA. The program is the core of NASA’s an array of new experimental aircraft that will carry on the legacy of demonstrating advanced technologies to push back the frontiers of aviation.
Because of the large fuel consumption of its rocket engine, the X-15 was air launched from a B-52 aircraft at about 45,000 feet and speeds upward of 500 mph. Depending on the mission, the rocket engine provided thrust for the first 80 to 120 seconds of flight.
The X-15 was a joint research program sponsored by the NACA, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, and private industry. It was designed to explore the upper limits of supersonic flight above Mach 2 and hypersonic flight beyond Mach 5.
Built by the Northrop Aircraft Corporation, the X-15's ball nose was an attitude sensing device, an Inconel sphere with small orifices that could measure the airplane's angle of attack and...