Previous discussions this morning: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873003 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873003 - 4 comments http://news.ycombinato

Previous discussions this morning: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873003 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873003 - 4 comments http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873313 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873313 - deleted This pcmag article is from yesterday, the plane has already taken off. The Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/#!/DARPA_News https://twitter.com/#!/DARPA_News) points to several updates after launch, and now to this news release (http://go.usa.gov/KLe http://go.usa.gov/KLe) which says: Separation of the vehicle was confirmed by rocket cam and the aircraft transitioned to Mach 20 aerodynamic flight. This transition represents a critical knowledge and control point in maneuvering atmospheric hypersonic flight. More than nine minutes of data was collected before an anomaly caused loss of signal. Initial indications are that the aircraft impacted the Pacific Ocean along the planned flight path. It's supposed to have automatic landing procedures (basically, to crash into the Pacific), so they may still be hoping for a recovery. Interestingly, Flight 1, which flew in April of last year, also collected 9 minutes of data. Maybe they just have to speed it up so they get where they want to be in less than 9 minutes....