It’s High Time For Hypersonic … Test vehicles
May 8, 2025
Stratolaunch is celebrating the successful second hypersonic flight and recovery of its Talon-A2 vehicle, demonstrating “the United States’ return to reusable hypersonic flight test since the X-15 programme ended in 1968,” explained the California-based company.
The reusable hypersonic test bed first achieved hypersonic (five times the speed of sound) flight during its trajectory in December 2024, since surpassing this speed record on its most recent hypersonic flight in March 2025. This, explained the team, confirmed “the demonstrated reusability” of a vehicle integral to the programme’s intention to “increase the speed of testing for all commercially available hypersonic systems”.
The flight was performed for the Test Resource Management Centre (TRMC) Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) programme under a partnership with engineering company Leidos, the second test completed on behalf of the programme. However, Stratolaunch has completed a total of four Talon-A flights to date, “flown two new supersonic and hypersonic airplanes in a single year, and …are firmly on the path to making hypersonic flight test services a reality,” explained Stratolaunch CEO and president Dr Zachory Krevor.
24 flights of the company’s proprietary ‘Roc’ aircraft (able to carry multiple high-mass payloads beneath its 385ft wingspan) have also been completed thus far. After completing its mission, the Talon-A2 successfully landed on a runway, demonstrating its reusability. This, said Krevor, means the programme has now “demonstrated hypersonic speed, added the complexity of a full runway landing with prompt payload recovery, and proven reusability”.
“Demonstrating the reuse of fully recoverable hypersonic test vehicles is an important milestone for MACH-TB,” concluded George Rumford, director of the Department of Defense test resource management centre. “Lessons learned from this test campaign will help us reduce vehicle turnaround time from months to weeks”.
