NASA has set Saturday, March 27, for the flight of its experimental X-43A
research vehicle. The unpiloted 12-foot-long vehicle, part aircraft and part
spacecraft, will be dropped from the wing of a B-52 aircraft, boosted to
nearly 100,000 feet by a booster rocket and released over the Pacific Ocean
to briefly fly under its own power at seven times the speed of sound, almost
5,000 mph.

        http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=13900

Hyper-X is inherently a high-risk program. No vehicle has ever flown at
hypersonic speeds powered by an air-breathing scramjet engine. In addition,
the rocket boost and subsequent separation from the rocket to get to the
scramjet test condition have complex elements that must work properly for
the mission to be successful.

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