By Adam Levine Military researchers conducting the flight of the
fastest unmanned aircraft ever launched said Thursday an
"anomaly" caused a lost contact with the vehicle nine minutes
into its flight. The plane is believed to have crashed in the
Pacific at some point along the planned flight path, according
to a statement from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency
(DARPA), which conducted the test. The Falcon Hypersonic Test
Vehicle (HTV-2) had successfully separated from the launch
vehicle and was performing "glide phase" maneuvers meant to test
its aerodynamics when contact was lost, according to an 11 a.m.
(ET) Twitter post from DARPA. A tweet, at 12:30 p.m. said
downrange trackers were unable to relocate the HTV2 but the
vehicle "has an autonomous flight termination capability". The
vehicle was launched by a Minotaur IV rocket from Vandenberg Air
Force Base in California, before separating and re-entering the
atmosphere over the Pacific. The launch, originally slated for
Wednesday but then scrubbed