A reusable hypersonic jet that can reach a staggering Mach 5 (or five times the speed of sound) has completed its second successful test flight. The Talon-A2 is an unmanned, aircraft built by California-based firm Stratolaunch, founded by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2011.
The autonomous drone is seen as a key milestone in the US’s attempts to catch up to the level of hypersonic weaponry already developed and deployed by China and Russia. The tests were carried out under the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) program, a US Defense Department initiative aimed at speeding up the development of hypersonic weapons by harnessing commercially available testing platforms, as per Space News.
Stratolaunch has been given a number of R&D (research and development) contracts from the US Air Force Research Laboratory to help pay for the test campaign, though most of their funding comes from private investors, FlightGlobal reports.
It hopes the reusable hypersonic flight vehicle can be used to test things like weapons in development, engines, communications equipment and sensors at high speeds, as per Reuters.
The plane was carried into the air by the colossal Stratolaunch craft, Roc, the world’s largest operational plane with a striking double fuselage, before being let go and roaring away at more than 3,800mph on two occasions, according to the Pentagon.
Though the technology is some way off a round-the-world trip, at those speeds, circling the globe would take less than seven hours.
The groundbreaking rockets flew over the Pacific before landing safely at California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base, the Defense Department said.
The Pentagon revealed that test flights were conducted in December last year and March 2025.
Stratolaunch’s President and CEO, Dr Zachary Krevor, said: “With the data collected from this second flight, we can apply lessons learned to enhance the strength and performance of the Talon-A vehicles.
“While the team needs to complete its data review of flight two, the first flight review confirmed the robustness of the Talon-A design.
“We’ve now demonstrated hypersonic speed, added the complexity of a full runway landing with prompt payload recovery, and proven reusability,” he added.
But not the first time an American aircraft has broken the the hypersonic barrier.
The feat was achieved back in the 1960s by North American X-15s, manned experimental aircraft developed by the US, but the programme was shut down in 1968.
