An experimental aircraft designed to use innovative air-breathing engine technology to attain hypersonic speeds previously achieved only by rockets.

Imagine taking off from any U.S. airport and landing on any other runway in the world in less than two hours. NASA's Hyper - X series.

NASA has established a multi-year experimental hypersonic ground and flight test program called Hyper-X. The program seeks to demonstrate "air-breathing" engine technologies that promise to increase payload capacity or reduce vehicle size for the same payload for future hypersonic aircraft and/or reusable space launch vehicles.

Hyper-X, NASA's multi-year hypersonic flight research program, seeks to overcome one of the greatest aeronautical research challenges - air-breathing hypersonic flight.