This September the US Air Force, with NASA providing back up, plans to begin testing their new HiFire jets at Woomera. Described as the "jewel in the crown" of scramjet technology, (HiFire is an acronym for Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation) their anticipated short-term application is much faster cruise missiles.

It will be pretty cool if Woomera has the capability to detect targets (as the Narrungar base did with Scud launchers in Gulf War !) and knock them off with missiles flying at eight times the speed of sound.

In the long term the project is hoped, according to its director, " to enable operationally responsive space access." The USAF says that "Hypersonic capability is of interest to the Air Force for its ability to enable "game changing" operations that exploit speed and responsiveness in both near- and far-term applications."

The $US 51 million contract between the USAF and the Weapons Division of DSTO (singed off in Canber on November 10 last year) is, according to our DoD's chief scientist "one of the largest aerospace collaborations ever between the two countries. "

Sources USAF Media Release 15th November 2006, Aviation Week, March 18 2007