The United States has successfully tested the Talon-A reusable hypersonic vehicle

 

The Talon-A reusable hypersonic vehicle has exceeded the speed of sound by five times

For the first time, the United States has conducted tests of a reusable hypersonic aircraft. An autonomous drone developed by Stratolaunch exceeded the speed by Mach 5 numbers during a test flight in March 2025. The Talon-A hypersonic vehicle launched from a carrier aircraft, flew over the Pacific Ocean and landed safely at the Space Forces base in California. 1.5 months later, the Pentagon revealed the test data.

In 1968, NASA, the US Air Force and the US Navy closed the X-15 program for the development of a rocket plane for hypersonic and suborbital flights, which lasted for almost 10 years and studied extreme speeds. Then the experimental aircraft set a speed record for manned vehicles — Mach 6.7.

Its successor, the Talon-A, was designed by Stratolaunch, founded in 2011 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The flights were conducted as part of the MACH-TB program, a Pentagon initiative aimed at accelerating the development of hypersonic weapons through the use of commercially available test platforms. According to Stratolaunch representatives, the company's reusable platform offers a cheaper and faster alternative to traditional one-time systems, allowing faster data acquisition and retesting.

The Talon-A2 was launched over the Pacific Ocean from under the wing of a huge Roc carrier aircraft with two twin fuselages and a wingspan of 117 meters, which also belongs to Stratolaunch. The drone accelerated to speeds exceeding Mach 5 and landed at the Vanderberg Military Space Base in California.

During the flight of the first single-use Talon-A model, which took place in March 2024, a supersonic speed of just under Mach 5 was achieved. The new version, TA-2, is fully reusable. The Talon-A2 is equipped with a Ursa Major Hadley rocket engine. It is a reusable 2.3-ton rocket engine powered by liquid oxygen and oxygen-enriched kerosene with a hybrid combustion cycle designed for small launch vehicles and hypersonic vehicles.

The success of these trials marks a turning point for Stratolaunch, which has been struggling financially since Allen's death in 2018. The company, originally created for the aerial launch of orbital rockets, was bought in 2019 by Cerberus Capital Management, and has since begun to engage in hypersonic testing. This turnaround was a lifesaver for the company, as it attracted attention and funding from the Pentagon.