May 10, 2006 The Supersonic Transport Team at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is reported to be set to begin talks with NASA and Boeing next month with a view to fast-tracking the development of its Scaled Experimental Supersonic Transport (SST) project into a full-blown, next generation Supersonic aircraft which will take over where the retired French-built Concorde left off when it was taken out of service six years ago. Tests of JAXA’s scramjet (Supersonic Combustion Ramjet) engine continue (20mb QT movie of lift-off here and 26MB QT movie of flight trial here) with the expectation that the engine can achieve speeds of Mach 5.5 (6700 km/h). Japan is expected to supply the engine for the project with Boeing building the spaceframe.

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