The X-15 was built by two manufacturers: North American Aviation was contracted for the airframe in November 1955, and Reaction Motors was contracted for building the engines in 1956. The requests for proposal (RFPs) were published on 30 December 1954 for the airframe and on 4 February 1955 for the rocket engine. The X-15 was based on a concept study from Walter Dornberger for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) for a hypersonic research aircraft. Design and development X-15 after igniting rocket engine X-15A-2, with sealed ablative coating, external fuel tanks, and ramjet dummy test The 5 Air Force pilots qualified for military astronaut wings immediately, while the 3 civilian pilots were eventually awarded NASA astronaut wings in 2005, 35 years after the last X-15 flight. Of these, 8 pilots flew a combined 13 flights which met the Air Force spaceflight criterion by exceeding the altitude of 50 miles (80 km), thus qualifying these pilots as being astronauts of those 13 flights, two (flown by the same civilian pilot) met the FAI definition (100 kilometres (62 mi)) of outer space.

ĭuring the X-15 program, 12 pilots flew a combined 199 flights. This set the official world record for the highest speed ever recorded by a crewed, powered aircraft, which remains unbroken.

The X-15's highest speed, 4,520 miles per hour (7,274 km/h 2,021 m/s), was achieved on 3 October 1967, when William J. The X-15 set speed and altitude records in the 1960s, reaching the edge of outer space and returning with valuable data used in aircraft and spacecraft design. It was operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as part of the X-plane series of experimental aircraft.

The North American X-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft.

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