Unmanned (and Autonomous) Hypersonic Aircraft

choi

The US detected successful tests, after 2014, of China's DF-ZF 东风-征服, a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). "The United States once referred to the DF-ZF as the WU-14."  en.wikipedia.org for DF-ZF. However, the rest of this posting is about hyersonic aircraft made in the US.

(1) Press release: Department of Defense Demonstrates Reusability of Hypersonic Test Vehicle. US Department of Defense, May 5, 2025.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Rel ... sonic-test-vehicle/
("This test campaign marks the Nation's first return to reusable hypersonic flight testing since the manned X-15 program ended in 1968")

Note:
(a) North American X-15
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15
(table: Number built 3, First flight         1959, Retired  1968; "experimental aircraft. * * * crossing the edge of outer space and returning * * * The X-15's highest speed * * * was achieved on 3 October 1967,[2] when William J Knight flew at Mach 6.7 at an altitude of * * * 31,120 m * * * This set the official world record for the highest speed ever recorded by a crewed, powered aircraft, which remains unbroken")
(b) A maker of aircraft, North American Aviation (1928-1967 via merger) was based in Los Angeles.


(2) Heather Somerville, US Advances in Hypersonic Race. Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2025, at page A3.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/ ... ns-race/ar-AA1EgelF
("Two startups conducted the test flights of a vessel called the Talon-A: Stratolaunch, the company making the hypersonic test aircraft and based in the Mojave Desert, and Ursa Major, a Colorado-based builder of liquid rocket engines. * * * The aircraft [Talon -A2] landed at a Space Force base on the central California coast [other news report specifies it was Vandenberg Space Force Base (in Santa Barbara County, California)]. * * *Stratolaunch is owned by private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, whose [Cerberus's] former co-CEO, Stephen Feinberg, was confirmed in March as the deputy secretary of defense")

Note: Mojave Desert
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Desert
(map)
Mojave is a Spanish word, and hence letter j is pronounced like letter h in English.


(3)
(a) Stratolaunch Systems
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratolaunch_Systems
(2011- ; Stratolaunch LLC was founded by Paul Allen (d 2018) and Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan, and "was acquired in 2019 by Cerberus Capital Management"/ corporate headquarters in Seattle and operation from Mojave Air and Space Port (owned by Kern Count, California), Mojave, California; section 2 Carrier aircraft, section 2.1 Roc: Click it and new Wiki page tell you: "It [carrier aircraft] is nicknamed 'Roc' after the mythical bird [in Arab], said to be large enough to carry an elephant")

In this Wiki page is an illustration with caption: "Comparison between five of the largest aircraft" (Stratolaunch is the pink plane with twin fuselages.)
(b) The scale of Roc compared to others (IPG attached at the bottom):
(c) Roc uses Northrop Grumman navigation called Advanced Hypersonic Technology Inertial Measurement Unit (which proves braving hypersonic speed).

(4) BREAKING! Stratolaunch Talon-A Test Flight Successful. YouTube uploaded by "The Launch Pad" on Mar 9, 2024 (30-second video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27eUV8Vs-YI
Demonstrating Talon-A1.