X-15 Flight 90
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| Mission statistics | ||||
| Mission Name: | X-15 Flight 90 | |||
| Call Sign: | X-15 | |||
| Number of Crew members: | 1 | |||
| Launch: | July 19, 1963 18:20:05 UTC NB-52B flying near Smith Ranch Dry Lake, NV |- |Landing:||July 19, 1963 18:31:29.1 UTC Rogers Dry Lake, Edwards AFB, CA |- |Duration: B-52 drop to X-15 wheel stop||11 minutes 24.1 seconds |- |Number of Orbits:||Suborbital |- |Apogee:||106.01 km |- |Distance Traveled:||534 km |- |Maximum velocity:||5,971 km/h |- |Peak acceleration:||5 G (49 m/s²) |- |Mass:||Launch 15,195 kg Burnout 6,577 kg Landing 6,260 kg |- !colspan="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FFDEAD"|Crew picture |- |colspan="2" align="center"| 
 |- !colspan="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FFDEAD"|Joe Walker |}
CrewMission parameters
Mission highlightsMaximum Speed - 5,971 km/h. Maximum Altitude - 106,010 m. 80 cm diameter balloon towed on 30 m line to measure air density. First X-15 flight over 100 km. First flight launched over Smith Dry Lake, NV. Experiments: Towed balloon, horizon scanner, photometer, infrared and ultraviolet. Balloon instrumentation failed.The mission was flown by X-15 #3, serial 56-6672 on its 21st flight. Launched by: NB-52B #008, Pilots Fulton & Bement. Takeoff: 17:19. UTC Landing: 19:04 UTC. Chase pilots: Crews, Dana, Rogers, Daniel and Wood. The X-15 engine burns about 85 seconds. Near the end of the burn, acceleration builds up to about 4 G (39 m/s²). Weightlessness lasts for 3 to 5 minutes. Re-entry heating warms the exterior of the X-15 to 650 °C. in places. During pull up after re-entry acceleration builds up to 5 G (49 m/s²) for 20 seconds. The entire flight is about 12 minutes from launch to landing. Pilot Robert White commented on his high altitude X-15 flights, "My flights to 217,000 feet [66 km] and 314,750 feet [96 km] were very dramatic in revealing the earth's curvature ... at my highest altitude I could turn my head through a 180º arc and wow! - the earth is really round. At my peak altitude I was roughly over the Arizona/California border in the area of Las Vegas, and this was how I described it: looking to my left I felt I could spit into the Gulf of California. Looking to my right I felt I could toss a dime into San Francisco Bay."
References
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