The U.S. Department of Defense is turning to commercial space companies to support hypersonic weapons testing, awarding new contracts to Varda Space Industries and Stratolaunch under a Pentagon testing initiative.
The Department of Defense said last week it had selected the two companies as providers for Task Area 3 of the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) program. This phase of the program focuses on reusable and recoverable flight concepts to support hypersonic missile testing.
“This award marks an important milestone in advancing the nation’s hypersonics testing ecosystem,” said Tony Kestranek, vice president of the program at the National Security Technology Accelerator, which sponsors MACH-TB. He said the shift toward reusable test platforms is intended to enable faster and more cost-effective testing while increasing the amount of data collected.
Under the contracts, Varda and Stratolaunch will provide reusable test vehicles and associated launch services for MACH-TB missions. The goal is to carry hypersonic experiments and payloads while enabling hardware recovery and reuse.
Varda is expected to contribute expertise gained from its work on reentry vehicles, while Stratolaunch will use its air-launch platform designed for hypersonic testing and flight operations.
Separately, Stratolaunch said on Friday that it had completed a “significant capital raise” to accelerate development of its hypersonic launch platform. The company did not disclose the size of the funding round but said it included investment from Elliott Investment Management and Cerberus Capital Management.
“The United States does not have time for incrementalism,” said Zachary Krevor in a statement, adding that the funding would be used to speed up vehicle development and manufacturing. Stratolaunch said it plans to use the capital to support growing demand from national security customers, including the DoD.
Hypersonic weapons development has become a priority for the United States as it seeks to expand testing capacity and shorten development timelines amid growing competition in advanced missile technologies.
