Stratolaunch has completed its second hypersonic flight and recovery with the Talon-A2 (TA-2) vehicle in March 2025. The TA-2 exceeded Mach 5 for the second time, surpassing its previous speed record set during its first hypersonic flight in December 2024. The flights confirm the vehicle’s reusability and strengthen the Talon-A programme.

“With the data collected from this second flight, we are able to 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 while demonstrating the ability to meet the full range of performance capabilities desired by our customers. We've now demonstrated hypersonic speed, added the complexity of a full runway landing with prompt payload recovery, and proven reusability. Both flights were great achievements for our country, our company, and our partners,” says Dr Zachary Krevor, president and CEO of Stratolaunch.

The flights were completed in support of the US defence sector and are part of Stratolaunch’s aim to build long-term, reusable hypersonic testing systems. These successful missions mark the return of reusable hypersonic flight tests in the United States since the X-15 programme ended in 1968.

“I am in awe of what this team has achieved. We've executed four incredible Talon-A flights, completed twenty-four Roc flights to date, flew two new supersonic and hypersonic airplanes in a single year, and we are firmly on the path to making hypersonic flight test services a reality,” Krevor adds.

The flights were performed for the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC) Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) programme, in partnership with Leidos. This was the second MACH-TB mission by Stratolaunch. The MACH-TB initiative aims to speed up testing of commercially available hypersonic systems.

“These flights were a huge success for our programme and for the nation. The data collected from the experiments flown on the initial Talon-A flight has now been analyzed and the results are extremely positive. The opportunity for technology testing at a high rate is highly valuable as we push the pace of hypersonic testing. The MACH-TB program is pleased with the multiple flight successes while looking forward to future flight tests with Stratolaunch,” says Scott Wilson, MACH-TB programme manager.

“Demonstrating the reuse of fully recoverable hypersonic test vehicles is an important milestone for MACH-TB,” adds George Rumford, director of the Department of Defense Test Resource Management Center. “Lessons learned from this test campaign will help us reduce vehicle turnaround time from months down to weeks.”