From Mach 0 to 6: this engine may power China’s future fighter jets and missiles

China is developing a revolutionary air-breathing engine for next-generation fighter jets and hypersonic missiles.Designed to operate continuously from a stationary start-up to over Mach 6, the “contra-rotary ramjet engine” could replace the combined turbine-ramjet systems currently used in high-speed flight.After more than three decades of work, the engine prototype has been completed and experimentally verified, marking a potential step towards engineering applications.The next steps involve adapting the engine to various aircraft platforms and conducting real-world flight tests, according to researchers involved in the project.“China’s development of new-principle engines would be a strategic choice to break the Western monopoly and even surpass the West,” Xu Jianzhong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was quoted as saying in a China Science Daily report earlier this month.Conventional approaches to hypersonic flight typically require two separate propulsion systems: a turbine engine for speeds below Mach 3 and a ramjet for higher speeds.