July 15, 2004
NASA's X-43A project was established to fly two Mach 7 and one Mach 10 scramjet powered, hypersonic airplanes. Griff Corpening, the X-43A Chief Engineer, will talk about the first failed flight two and a half years ago, the subsequent return to flight efforts, and the successful second flight of March 27th, 2004.
Dr. Griff Corpening earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Wyoming in 1977 and 1984, respectively. He continued his education at the University of Maryland, earning a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering in 1988. Dr. Corpening worked on scramjets at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory from 1987-1991. Since 1991, he has worked on a variety of hypersonic flight test programs at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA. Dr. Corpening has been the Chief Engineer for flights 1 & 2 of the X-43A.