Back-Illuminated Camera Images the Future of Spaceflight

Daniel C. McCarthy

Rocket power blazed the early trails that took us into orbit, but aerospace engineers have endeavored to develop a jet-propelled aircraft able to reach orbital velocities from Mach 20 to 25. One possibility is the supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet.

Compared with today's commercial turbojets, scramjet engines are mechanically simple yet aerodynamically complex. Their design requires advanced imaging techniques to study and refine the high-speed combustion that will propel these craft. One group of researchers at Innovative Scientific Solutions Inc. is using a 16-bit back-illuminated SpectraVideo camera from PixelVision Inc. to study oxygen pressure around scramjet injection block designs....

Contact: Tyler Nebeker, PixelVision Inc., Tigard, Ore.; (503) 431-3228. Larry Goss, Innovative Scientific Solutions Inc., Dayton, Ohio; (937) 252-2706.