Stratolaunch, LLC has received a flight test contract award from Leidos, the prime contractor for the U.S. Navy’s Multiservice Advanced Capability Test Bed (MACH-TB) — this contract award is funded by Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Crane Division through the Strategic and Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems (S²MARTS) Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) — this contract award funds five, Talon-A, hypersonic flights and optional payloads.
NSWC Crane’s MACH-TB program focuses on hypersonic flight testing using robust, agile, and modular approaches. The Leidos-led team intends to deliver an affordable solution, leveraging commercial launch vehicles, including Stratolaunch’s Talon-A hypersonic vehicle, for flight testing hypersonic payloads. The data collected is designed to provide insight to the DoD on technology improvement and capability validation. Early, affordable, and regular hypersonic flight testing is key to robust and successful developments of hypersonic capabilities.
Stratolaunch’s Talon-A, a reusable autonomous hypersonic vehicle, operates as a high-cadence, high-speed testbed to advance the MACH-TB program development. Stratolaunch’s hypersonic contractor-owned and operated flight test service directly complements the goals of MACH-TB.