Stratolaunch announces its extended partnership in the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonics Test Bed (MACH-TB) 2.0 program, awarded on September 30, 2025, by the Department of War’s Test Resource Management Center (TRMC) through the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Crane’s S²MARTS (Strategic & Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems) Other Transaction Agreement (OTA). This new award extends Stratolaunch’s partnership in the MACH-TB initiative to further advance hypersonic flight testing and technology development. Under MACH-TB 2.0 Task 3, Stratolaunch will conduct multiple air-launched flight tests over a two-year period, reinforcing the company’s commitment to providing flexible, high-cadence hypersonic test solutions that accelerate innovation in advanced aerospace technologies, building on the demonstrated success of the Talon-A.
“Stratolaunch is proud to continue our partnership and contribute our expertise to this vital national defense priority. Our fully reusable, air-launch platform offers unmatched flexibility and frequency for hypersonic flight testing, which is essential for accelerating the development of advanced high-speed technologies for the United States. The success of our TA-2 flights demonstrated our readiness to support the hypersonic flight test goals of MACH-TB. We look forward to working alongside our government and industry partners to push the boundaries of high-speed flight” Dr. Zachary Krevor CEO and President of Stratolaunch said.
Stratolaunch successfully achieved reusability in hypersonic flight test with its fully autonomous Talon-A2 (TA-2). These missions, air-launched from the Roc carrier aircraft, collected critical data on the hypersonic flight environment, advanced materials, and systems. The repeated recovery of TA-2 underscored its reusability and significantly advanced the understanding of hypersonic flight. The MACH-TB program is a collaborative effort involving multiple government agencies and industry partners, focused on building a robust and responsive hypersonic test infrastructure. Stratolaunch’s involvement will support the program’s objectives by providing a cost-effective, scalable, and repeatable platform for a range of hypersonic experiments.
Stratolaunch LLC is a private American aerospace company providing high-speed flight test services. It was founded in 2011 to develop a new air-launched space transportation system, with its corporate headquarters in Seattle. The company and development project were announced in December 2011 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan, who had previously collaborated on SpaceShipOne. The company was acquired in 2019 by Cerberus Capital Management and has continued privately funded, operating as a non-traditional defense contractor. 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).
