Scramjet

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A scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) is a variant of a ramjet airbreathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow. As in ramjets,^[1] a scramjet relies on high vehicle speed to compress the incoming air forcefully before combustion (hence ramjet), but where as a ramjet decelerates the air to subsonic velocities before combustion using shock cones, a scramjet has no shock cone and slows the airflow using shockwaves produced by its ignition source in place of a shock cone.^[2] This allows the scramjet to operate efficiently at extremely high speeds.^[3]

Although scramjet engines have been used in a handful of operational military vehicles, scramjets have so far mostly been demonstrated in research test articles and experimental vehicles. An exception to this is the Russian attack of Ukraine with a scramjet powered missile in March 2024.