Reusable Vehicle Exceeds Mach 5 In Second Launch, Recovery

Stratolaunch announced the second successful launch and recovery of its Talon-A2 autonomous vehicle in a March flight that exceeded its previous speed beyond Mach 5, also for the second time, demonstrating its practical reusability.

Stratolaunch is focused on expanding its hypersonic flight testing to support the defense objectives of the U.S. in its return to hypersonic flight since the end of the X-15 program in 1968.

Dr. Zachary Krevor, President and CEO of Stratolaunch said, “With the data collected from this second flight, we are able to apply lessons learned to enhance the strength and performance of the Talon-A vehicles.

“While the team needs to complete its data review of flight two, the first flight review confirmed the robustness of the Talon-A design while demonstrating the ability to meet the full range of performance capabilities desired by our customers. We’ve now demonstrated hypersonic speed, added the complexity of a full runway landing with prompt payload recovery, and proven reusability. Both flights were great achievements for our country, our company, and our partners.”

Dr. Krevor added, “I am in awe of what this team has achieved. We’ve executed four incredible Talon-A flights, completed twenty-four Roc flights to date, flew two new supersonic and hypersonic airplanes in a single year, and we are firmly on the path to making hypersonic flight test services a reality.”

Stratolaunch performed the test flights under the Multi-service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed, or MACH-TB, program conducted by the Test Resource Management Center.

George Rumford, Director of the Department of Defense Test Resource Management Center said, “Demonstrating the reuse of fully recoverable hypersonic test vehicles is an important milestone for MACH-TB. Lessons learned from this test campaign will help us reduce vehicle turnaround time from months down to weeks.”

FMI:  www.stratolaunch.com/