Stratolaunch Secures AFRL Contract Supporting Hypersonic Test Flight

Aerospace company Stratolaunch announced that it has received an Air Force Research Laboratory contract to support the Talon-A 3 reusable hypersonic test vehicle‘s first flight demonstration.

Talon-A vehicles serve as autonomous testbeds capable of various flight profiles while carrying customized payloads, Stratolaunch said Thursday.

The company said in a press release that Talon-A’s reusability enables rapid, iterative testing to increase hypersonic experimentation access while reducing development costs and risks.

Stratolaunch CEO Zachary Krevor said the award indicates that AFRL values his company’s high-cadence flight test approach.

The company uses the Roc carrier aircraft to launch Talon-A vehicles.

In late 2022, Stratolaunch secured a position on the U.S. Navy’s Multiservice Advanced Capability Testbed program. Krevor said the Talon-A vehicle would be integrated into MACH-TB, a hypersonic testing effort led by Leidos-owned Dynetics.

Earlier, Stratolaunch received an AFRL contract to study the feasibility of regular hypersonic test flights carrying Air Force payloads. The company was tasked to work alongside Booz Allen Hamilton.