Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) successfully completed two test flights of its Advanced Hypersonic Technology Inertial Measurement Unit at hypersonic speed, leveraging Stratolaunch’s reusable hypersonic airplane, Talon-A. These advanced flight tests move engineers one step closer to precisely navigating hypersonic vehicles in GPS-denied environments, further protecting the trajectory of the hypersonic vehicle from adversary threats. Survivability of the navigation unit, also known as a hemispherical resonator gyroscope, is a major accomplishment due to the harsh environment hypersonic speed presents and the intense forces experienced as the technology operates within Earth’s atmospheric boundary. This technology collected hours of critical ground and flight data, pivotal for future development.
Originally proposed in 2018 as the Hyper-A, Stratolaunch is developing a reusable, rocket-powered, hypersonic flight vehicle called Talon-A that would be capable of flying at speeds of Mach 5 – Mach 7 (6,100–8,600 km/h; 3,800–5,300 mph). The aircraft is 28 ft (8.5 m) in length, with a wingspan of 11.3 ft (3.4 m), and is intended to have a launch mass of approximately 6,000 lb (2,700 kg) and be capable of runway landings. Future iterations of Talon-A will be testbeds carrying customizable payloads at speeds above Mach 5 with the capability for runway landings. Reuse would enable lower-cost access to sub-thermosphere hypersonic environments. The team is fabricating two additional vehicles, TA-2 and TA-3. A successful flight of TA-2 would make it the first fully reusable hypersonic test vehicle.
