The American company Stratolaunch Systems Corporation that is developing a new air launching system to orbit, successfully completed its second hypersonic flight and recovery with the totally autonomous vehicle Talon-A2 (TA-2) in last March, as announced on Monday.
This important achievement occurred after the successful first hypersonic flight of the TALON-A2 in December 2024, which confirmed the demonstrated reuse of the vehicle. The vehicle exceeded Mach 5 during its trajectory for the second time, exceeding the previous speed record established on the December flight.
“With the data collected in this second flight, we can apply the lessons learned to improve the resistance and performance of the TALON-A vehicles. While the equipment must complete the data review of the second flight, the first review confirmed the robustness of the design of the TALON-A, demonstrating its ability to meet all the performance needs of our customers. We have demonstrated hypersonic speedadded the complexity of a full track landing with rapid recovery of the payload and proven its reuse. Both flights were great achievements for our country, our company and our partners, ”said Zachary Krevor, president and CEO of Stratolaunch.
In support of the US defense initiatives, Stratolaunch focuses on expanding its hypersonic flight tests and guaranteeing long -term sustainability of reusable hypersonic test banks. These complete flights They demonstrate the US return to reusable hypersonic flight tests since the end of the X-15 program in 1968.
“I am amazed by what this team has achieved. We have made four incredible Talon-A flightscompleted 24 ROC flights to date, flying two new supersonic and hypersonic planes in a single year, and we are firmly aimed at making hypersonic flight test services come true, ”said Krevor.
Stratolaunch made the flights for the Hypersonic Testing Bank Program of Advanced Multiservice Capacity (Mach-TB) of the Test Resources Management Center (TRMC) in collaboration with Leidos. The Mach-TB program aims to accelerate the tests of all the hypersonic systems available commercially. This It was Stratolaunch’s second flight made on behalf of the program.
“These flights were a great success for our program and for the country. The data collected from the experiments carried out on the initial flight of the TALON-A have already been analyzed and the results are extremely positive. The opportunity to perform technological tests at an accelerated pace is very valuable as we accelerate the rhythm of hypersonic tests. The MACH-TB program is satisfied with the multiple successes of the flights and Wait for interest the future flight tests with Stratolaunch”Said Scott Wilson, director of the Mach-TB program
“Demonstrating the reuse of totally recoverable hypersonic test vehicles is an important milestone for Mach-TB,” said George Rumford, director of the Defense Department Test Resource Management Center. “The lessons learned in this test campaign will help us reduce the response time of vehicles from months to weeks.”
