By Jack Loughran Mon 11 Mar 2024
Stratolaunch has completed the first powered flight of its unmanned, hypersonic test aircraft dubbed Talon-A.
Hypersonic refers to aircraft that can achieve speeds of at least five times the speed of sound, or 3,836mph.
The privately funded firm wanted to test various capabilities of its reusable aircraft including engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb in altitude and a controlled water landing.
Talon-A, which is powered by a liquid-fuel rocket engine, ended its flight by descending into the ocean as planned. While the aircraft was considered expendable in this testing phase, a future version will be capable of landing on a runway for reuse.
“While I can’t share the specific altitude and speed TA-1 reached due to proprietary agreements with our customers, we are pleased to share that in addition to meeting all primary and customer objectives of the flight, we reached high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5 and collected a great amount of data at an incredible value to our customers,” said Stratolaunch CEO Dr Zachary Krevor.
“Our goal with this flight was to continue our risk reduction approach for TA-2’s first reusable flight and be steadfast on our commitment of delivering maximum value to our customers. We are excited to review the data from today’s test and use it as we plan our next steps toward TA-2’s first flight later this year.”
The Seattle-based firm was originally formed in 2011 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to develop new air-launched space transportation systems.
It planned to build a carrier aircraft, a multi-stage payload launch vehicle for space launches from that carrier aircraft, and a mating and integration system. However, by the time Allen died in 2018, only the carrier aircraft had been fully developed. It then underwent a change of ownership in 2019 and shifted focus to hypersonic aircraft.
Concurrent to TA-1 testing, Stratolaunch is progressing the manufacturing of TA-3, the second fully reusable vehicle in the Talon-A product line. The company is also beginning modifications to its additional launch platform, the Spirit of Mojave, which is a modified Boeing 747-400.
The firm has previously signed contracts with the US Air Force Research Laboratory and the Navy’s Multiservice Advanced Capability Test Bed program.
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