Utilizing plasma and electromagnetic interaction on hypersonic vehicles for aerodynamic control, drag reduction, thermal management and propulsion is being explored in aeronautics. Innovative schemes have been proposed by US agencies and industries and foreign governments, e.g., the Russian AJAX. This SBIR will to explore this subject and produce hardware for plasma/EM systems that form "Enabling Technologies" for advanced hypersonic aircraft. National initiatives in hypersonic vehicle development will lead to flight vehicles within the next five years. Both the Hyper X and HySID programs have this purpose and provide unique opportunity to host experiments to explore EM concepts/systems at actual conditions. Their timeline is ideal to provide the testbed for Phase's II and III. The Phase I SBIR program will peform R/R&D to screen plasma/EM/MHD/MGD hypersonic vehicles and propulsion concepts and identify those enabling technologies for advanced vehicles within the next decade. The work plan combines scientific assessment of hypersonics subject to plasma/EM phenomena with aircraft design and propulsion engineering. It will perform analysis, engineering, system trade-off and vehicle integration studies to select systems for development in Phase II. Phase I will define a Phase II technology "road map" for verification in laboratory and flight tests to produce flight hardware for Phase III.
