"Provesting reuse of fully recyclable hypersonic test vehicles is an important milestone for the Mach-TB," George Rumford, director of the Test Resource Management Center, said in a statement. "The lessons learned from this test event will help us reduce vehicle turnaround time from months to weeks."
Krevor said Talon A conducted multiple experiments on each task, but did not provide any details about the nature of the payload and used proprietary reasons and customer agreements as examples.
"We cannot disclose the nature of these payloads except to talk about typical materials, instruments, sensors, etc." "The customer is very excited about the ability to recover the payload shortly after landing."
Stratolaunch completed the first powered flight of the Talon-A vehicle last year when the rocket plane was launched in the Pacific Ocean and launched the Hadley Engine, a liquid-fueled produced by Ursa Major, for about 200 seconds. The Talon-A1 vehicle accelerated to exceed the hypersonic speed and then fell into the sea as planned and was not recovered.
This laid the foundation for Talon-A2's first flight in December.
Military officials have previously said they set up a Mach-TB program to enable more frequent flight tests of ultrasonic weapon technology, including communication, navigation, guidance, sensors and seekers. Stratolaunch aims to fly Talon-A rocket planes monthly by the end of the year and ultimately hope to increase weekly flights to weekly flights.
"These flights are laying the stage to increase the pace of supersonic flight tests in the country," Krevo said. "The ability to have a fully reusable hypersonic flight architecture can make the flight very high and have a lot of responsiveness. If there is a priority plan, the Department of Defense can call Stratolaunch and next week we can do supersonic flights assuming all other technologies and paid loads are ready."
Pentagon officials set a goal in 2022 to conduct hypersonic tests annually from 12 flight tests. Krevor believes Stratolaunch will play a key role in achieving this goal.
So, why is hypersonic flight testing important?
The Pentagon is trying to bridge the technological gap with China, which U.S. officials acknowledge that it has become a global leader in the development of treble missiles. Hypersonic weapons are more difficult to detect, track and destroy air defense systems than traditional missiles. Unlike ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons ride on top of the atmosphere, enhancing their maneuverability and ability to evade interceptors.
Supersonic flight is a ruthless environment. As the aircraft tillages through air molecules, temperatures outside the claw type A vehicles can reach up to 2,000°Fahrenheit (1,100°Celsius), Krevo said. He declined to disclose the duration, top speed and maximum altitude of the test flights in December and March, but said the rocket aircraft conducted a series of "High-G" exercises during the journey from the drop site to Van Denberg.