Ayaks

The Ayaks (Russian: АЯКС, Ajax) is a hypersonic aircraft program started in the Soviet Union and currently under development in the Russian Federation^[1] by the Saint Petersburg Institute for the Hypersonic Systems of Leninets Holding Company. The concept of the aircraft was developed by Vladimir Freishtadt (Владимир Львович Фрайштадт) in the late 1980s as a response to the American Aurora aircraft program.^[2] The Ayaks was initially supposed to be produced in three variants:^[2]

• As a platform for launching satellites into space;
• As a multipurpose hypersonic military aircraft; and
• As a hypersonic transport aircraft.

The design of the aircraft utilized a number of novel and controversial ideas that only in 1993 were officially recognized as non-contradicting to modern science^[2]. The prototype of the aircraft was demonstrated during the 2001 MAKS Airshow. The same year, the governments of Russia and the People's Republic of China signed a contract on joint 10-15 years development of the concept.^[2][3][4]

Contents 1 History 1.1 Significance 2 Novel "Magneto-plasmo-chemical engine" 3 Status of the project 4 Specifications 5 References in the popular culture 6 Sources and references 7 See also

History

In the early 1980s, Soviet scientists began to explore a new type of aircraft. The Ayaks was to be a new Soviet aerospaceship capable of flying and conducting a wide range of missions in the mesosphere, for both military and civilian purposes. The original concept was inspired by Lockheed's Aurora hypersonic reconnaissance aircraft project, but later was expanded into the wider concept of hypersonic multi-purpose military and civilian jets, as well as a platform for launching satellites.

Significance

The mesosphere is the third layer of the Earth's atmosphere, from 50 to 85 km (164,000 to 279,000 ft) high (just below the thermosphere and above the stratosphere). It is very difficult to fly in the mesosphere — the air is too rarefied for aircraft and too dense for satellites to fly. In addition, the air in the mesosphere is highly ionized due to space particle beams. The ability to conduct military activities in the mesosphere gives a country some significant military potential. The aircraft might be planned to be used as a form of an asymmetrical response to SDI (U.S. President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative), since most of the planned anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems would not be effective in the mesosphere.

Novel "Magneto-plasmo-chemical engine"

The Ayaks was projected to employ a novel engine that uses some form of MHD generator to collect and slow down highly ionized and rarefied air. The air is mixed with fuel into the mixture that burns in the combustor, while the electricity produced by the inlet's MHD generator is used in the magnetoplasmadynamic thruster to provide additional thrust. The plasma funnel developed over the air inlet from the magnetohydrodynamics forces greatly increases the ability of the engine to collect air, increasing the effective diameter of the air inlet up to hundreds of meters. Thus, the Ayaks' engine can use atmospheric oxygen, even at heights above 35 km (115,000 ft).^[2] The fuel feed system of the Ayaks engine is also novel. When the aircraft reaches hypersonic speed, it uses the heating energy from air friction to increase the heat capacity of the fuel ("reform" the fuel). The aircraft has double shielding between which water and ordinary, cheap kerosene circulates. The energy of surface heating is used to break up water into hydrogen and oxygen. Thus, the heating capacity of the fuel increases, and the surface of the aircraft cools down.^[2] The whole concept is named "Magneto-plasmo-chemical engine" (Магнитоплазмохимический Двигатель).^[2] Furthermore, the Ayaks can be equipped with a Soviet plasma anti-friction generator (which was under development in the 1980s, and is already present in passive mode on the Mikoyan Project 1.44 prototype), a large device which uses lasers and high-frequency radiation to create plasmoids. This generator doubles the Ayaks' speed by considerably reducing air resistance. According to the 1995 Russian popular science magazine Tekhnika - Molodezhi, this machine is "an aero cosmic cruiser with a plasma-magneto-chemical engine, which moves faster than anything ever built".^[5] According to Paul A. Czysz,^[1] there are six novel ideas in the concept of the Ayaks' engine:

1. Energy bypass via coupled MHD generator/accelerator: a portion of the free kinetic energy of air bypasses the combustion chamber, thus reducing entropy rise in the combustion chamber;
2. Reforming of the hydrocarbon fuel, increasing its energy concentration;
3. Ionization of the air in the nose of the aircraft and the airflow entering the engine;
4. Powering the fuel reforming process by the MHD generator in the nose of the engine;
5. Increase of the combustion effectiveness of the engine by injecting plasma and/or hydrogen upstream of the main fuel injectors; and
6. Diverting some electrical energy produced by the MHD generator to peaceful or military directed-energy devices.

Status of the project

The prototype of the aircraft was demonstrated during the 2001 MAKS Airshow. The same year, the governments of Russia and China signed a contact on joint 10-15 years development of the concept.^[2][3][4] The experience obtained during the work on the Ayaks project was used in preparation of a project for single-stage hypersonic spacecrafts, Neva.^[6] According to the authors, the air-breathing design of a single-assembly craft may provide siginificant economy over the Space Shuttle or Buran spacecrafts.^[6]

Specifications

According to the data presented at the 2001 MAKS Airshow, the specifications of the Ayaks are:

Parameter	Hypersonic Satellite Launcher	Multi-purpose Hypersonic Craft	Transport Hypersonic Craft
Maximum takeoff weight, tonne	267	200	390
Loaded Weight, tonne	113	85	130
Empty weight, tonne	76
Mass of the second stage, tonne	36
Payload, tonne		10	10
Satellite mass, tonne	6
Turbojet engines	4	4	4
Magneto-plasmo-chemical engines	4	6	4
Thrust, turbojet engines, tonne	4×25	4×25	4×40
Thrust, magneto-plasmo-chemical engines	4×25	6×14	4×40
Maximal speed, m/s	4000	4000	4600
Service ceiling, km	36	36	36
Practical range at M = 8 ... 10 and height of 30 km	14200	10000	12000

Earlier publication cited even more impressive expected performance of service ceiling of 60 km and speed of 15..30M

References in the popular culture

The Ayaks program is prominent in The broken sword of the Empire novel by the nationalist author Maxim Kalashnikov.^[7]

Sources and references

See also

• Soviet space program
• Superweapon