(Reuters) – Privately held U.S. company Stratolaunch on Saturday said it had successfully completed the first powered flight of its Talon-A reusable hypersonic vehicle, but did not disclose precise details.
“Today was a great day for the Stratolaunch team. I am extremely proud of their persistence in achieving this goal,” company President Zachary Crevor said in a statement.
“While I cannot name the specific altitude and speed that TA-1 achieved…we achieved high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5 and collected enormous amounts of data that were incredibly valuable to our customers,” he said.
Defense contractors hope to capitalize on the shift to hypersonic weapons not only by building them, but also by developing new systems to detect and defend against them.
Stratolaunch hopes to complete development of the reusable Talon-A this year.
“The main flight test objectives included performing a safe air launch of the TA-1 vehicle, engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb and controlled water landing,” the report said.
The United States and its global rivals are accelerating work on hypersonic weapons that travel through the upper atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound.