Sprint Missile
Why Space Exploration Stack Exchange recommends it
Space Stack Exchange users link it as rare real footage of an object moving at hypersonic speed in the lower atmosphere and heating until it glows white hot.
Recommended by 0 people across 0 different months, 2016 to 2024.
What it is
A 33-second archival clip of the Martin Marietta Sprint anti-ballistic missile launching and reaching about Mach 10 within seconds. The missile visibly glows from air friction as it climbs. It is posted by the atomcentral channel with a short description of the ABM system.
What people said
Cites marked-down · 2016-09 · Space Exploration Stack Exchange · on “What does orbital velocity look like near the ground”
Nothing has ever travelled 8km/s in the Earth's lower atmosphere; and to be frank I'm not sure whether that's ever going to be possible citation needed . As uhuh points out in the comments on your post, the velocity you need to orbit Earth at ground level is approximately 7910m/s, or a little over Mach 23. I can however provide you video footage of something traveling at a little under half that, at a more leisurely pace of Mach 10: the Martin Marietta Sprint missile , which was introduced in 1972 as an anti-ballistic missile as part of the Sentinel Program. [LINK] By the time it reached its cruising speed in under 5 seconds, it had accelerated to a velocity of Mach 10 (or 3,430m/s), traveli
Cites Organic Marble · 2018-07 · Space Exploration Stack Exchange · on “What is the maximum speed can a space rocket can travel with an air pressure of 14psi?”
Probably the historical highest was the Sprint [LINK] missile which accelerated at 100 G and hit Mach 10 in 5 seconds, amazing speeds in the atmosphere. Obviously it had severe thermal issues. It was also a silo-launched popup missile which lit off after it left the silo. In the video you can see the characteristic very low speed of the missile at which the engine ignites after emerging from the silo. It is hard to imagine that if there were a practical means of accelerating the missile out of the silo, it wouldn't have been done for this application. (Sprint's mission was to intercept incoming nuclear warheads that had made it through a higher altitude interception screen - it was all about
Cites Muze · 2019-04 · Space Exploration Stack Exchange · on “What is the point in which metal turns white hot during launch or reentry called?”
This is a slow motion film of the Sprint missle. There is a point where to skin goes white hot like a light switch. What is that called? What metal gets white hot while keeping its shape?
Cites TemporalWolf · 2019-07 · Space Exploration Stack Exchange · on “Are rockets faster than airplanes?”
It's truly an unreasonable result: the rocket could also turn up to 75 degrees and still achieve Mach 6.5 at burnout. The follow-on project, the sprint missile [LINK] ), achieved *only* 100g of acceleration but over a longer period, capping out at Mach 10. There are videos of sprint launches where you can see the missile itself turn white hot [this video] from achieving ridiculous speeds in atmosphere.
Cites phil1008 · 2024-05 · Space Exploration Stack Exchange · on “Simulating the thermal heating of a nose cone exiting an atmosphere”
@LawnHollanderLawn Maybe the Sprint Missile [this video] will illustrate the kind of heating that I'm interesting in finding formulas to describe.