2024-03-12 05:50:27
This article was originally published in English
Carried aloft by the enormous six-engine Roc carrier aircraft, Stratolaunch’s Talon test craft reached a speed of Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound.
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The American aerospace company Stratolaunch has successfully carried out the first powered test flight of a new unmanned vehicle intended for hypersonic research.
The term “hypersonic” refers to flights at a speed of at least Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound.
Zachary Krevor, president and CEO, said in a statement that the Talon-A-1 vehicle “reached high supersonic speeds close to Mach 5 and collected a lot of valuable data for our customers”.
Zachary Krevor specifies thatit cannot disclose the altitude and speed of the craft due to ownership agreements with customers.
The company’s massive six-engine carrier aircraft, named Roc, carried the Talon aloft before releasing it off the central coast of California, United States.
The Talon, powered by a liquid-fueled rocket engine, ended its flight by descending into the ocean as planned. Although this model is single-use, a future version will be capable of landing on an airstrip for reuse.
Stratolaunch said the primary objectives of the flight included safe release of the vehicle, engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb to altitude and controlled water landing.
An important milestone in hypersonic testing
The company described this result asmajor step in developing the first privately funded reusable hypersonic testing capability in the United States.
Stratolaunch conducted two tethered transport flights, in December and February, during which the Talon was taken aloft with fuel while remaining attached to the transport aircraft.
The Roc aircraft, named following an enormous mythological bird, has a wingspan of 117 m and has two fuselages. It was developed by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, who died a few months before its first flight in April 2019.
Stratolaunch is based at the Mojave Air and Space Port in the Mojave Desert, north of Los Angeles.
Paul Allen intended to use it as a carrier aircraft for space launches, carrying rockets loaded with satellites under its wing and releasing them at high altitudes.
This project was canceled and the new owners then repurposed Stratolaunch to launch reusable hypersonic research vehicles.
Stratolaunch announced it has entered into flight contracts with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and the Navy’s Multiservice Advanced Capability Test Bed program, as a subcontractor to technology company Leidos of Reston, Wash. Virginia.
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