{"id":5992,"date":"2026-01-10T11:28:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T05:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=5992"},"modified":"2026-01-10T14:46:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T09:16:33","slug":"what-is-a-scramjet-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-a-scramjet-engine\/","title":{"rendered":"Scramjet Engine"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Scramjet Engine Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) conducted successful ground testing of full scale actively cooled long duration Scramjet Engine for Hypersonic Missile Programme.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Scramjet Engine<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Scramjet (Supersonic Combustion Ramjet) is <\/span><b>an air-breathing engine<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> designed to operate <\/span><b>efficiently at hypersonic speeds<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (Mach 5 and above).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It does <\/span><b>not use rotating compressors<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, relying instead on the vehicle\u2019s high speed to compress air.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scramjets enable <\/span><b>supersonic combustion<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, making <\/span><b>them suitable for Hypersonic Cruise Missiles (HCMs).<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It carries <\/span><b>liquid Hydrogen as fuel<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>liquid Oxygen for combustion<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (oxidiser) to generate thrust.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>India is the fourth country<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to demonstrate the flight <\/span><b>testing of a Scramjet Engine<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Working Principle of Scramjet Engine<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Air intake:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Vehicle must already be flying at supersonic speeds (Mach 3+).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Compression:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> High-speed movement compresses the incoming air.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Combustion:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Hydrogen fuel is injected and ignited while air remains supersonic.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Thrust Generation:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Expanding gases create thrust (based on Newton\u2019s Third Law).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scramjets <\/span><b>need rocket-assisted takeoff<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as they <\/span><b>can\u2019t generate thrust at zero speed.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>fuel efficiency o<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">f the scramjets tends to be <\/span><b>significantly better<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> than that of traditional turbojets and ramjets.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>What are Hypersonic Missiles?<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It refers to one which <\/span><b>travels faster than Mach 5<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, or five times the speed of sound (330 m\/s).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>There are two types:\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Hypersonic Glide vehicles<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (HGV):These are launched from a rocket, similar to regular ballistic missiles, before gliding to a target.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Hypersonic Cruise Missiles: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are powered throughout their flight via air-breathing engines called Scramjets, after acquiring their target.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2213017&amp;reg=3&amp;lang=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PIB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scramjet Engine is an air-breathing engine designed to operate efficiently at hypersonic speeds (Mach 5 and above). Read more about Scramjet Engine, Working Principle, Combustion, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":81885,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,4659,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-5992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-scramjet-engine","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}