Stratolaunch completes first flight of its Talon-A hypersonic test vehicle
Stratolaunch yesterday successfully completed the first flight of its Talon-A hypersonic test vehicle, released from its giant Roc airplane.
Primary objectives for the flight test included accomplishing safe air-launch release of the TA-1 vehicle, engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb in altitude, and a controlled water landing.
“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 [Dr. Zachary Krevor President and CEO of Stratolaunch]. “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.”
Stratolaunch’s main customer is the Air Force, which wishes to use this testbed to test hypersonic flight in a number of ways, both for missiles and possibly aircraft. Those military goals explain the required secrecy.
Stratolaunch is under competitive pressure from Rocket Lab, which has already demonstrated that the first stage of its Electron rocket can provide a similar testbed. Stratolaunch is reusable, however, which potentially makes it cheaper with a faster turnaround. Rocket Lab in turn is already capable of test flights. This Stratolaunch success will likely spur Rocket Lab to complete its program to recover and reuse those first stages, while Rocket Lab’s succes is likely spurring Stratolaunch to accelerate its own program.
Ain’t competition wonderful?
