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Hypersonix Launch Systems will provide hypersonic vehicles to the United States’ Defense Innovation Unit for testing, after a corporate announcement on 16 March.
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The Australian aerospace company is competing among a field of 63 major international aerospace companies for the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) contract under the Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing Capabilities (HyCAT1) program.
The DIU is seeking vehicles usable for high cadence long-endurance testing of hypersonic platforms and components, sensors for detecting and tracking, systems for communications, navigation, guidance, and control.
The Silicon Valley-headquartered organisation is also requesting a vehicle capable of operating in a “representative environment” with maintainable speeds above Mach 5 with a manoeuvrable/non-ballistic flight profile and at least a three-minute flight duration with near-constant flight conditions.
Hypersonix Launch Systems managing director David Waterhouse said the company has responded with its DART Additive Engineering vehicle, which makes significant use of 3D-printing and is powered by a hydrogen-fuelled SPARTAN scramjet engine.
“Our vehicles are capable of non-ballistic flight patterns to at least Mach 7, which exceeds the HyCAT1 specification,” he said.
“Our longer-term focus is to capture a slice of the emerging multi-billion-dollar commercial market for deployment of small satellites, but clearly Australia’s strategic defence allies see immediate potential in our technology.
“This is our first major contract and a key step in our commercialisation process – we couldn’t be happier. This puts Australia one step closer to being a major player in the international space race.”
The DART AE is capable of flying non-ballistic flight patterns at speeds of Mach 5 to Mach 7, up to 1000 kilometres in range or 400 seconds flight time and has a modular payload bay of up to 20lbs, according to Waterhouse.
Hypersonix plans to fly the DART AE in early 2024.
Waterhouse said the DIU contract demonstrates the United States’ increased willingness to source commercial technologies from allied countries to meet urgent strategic challenges.
The contract with Hypersonix permits DIU to “transition” successful prototype projects into follow-on “production contracts” under simplified rules and without need to recompete a successful project. Follow-on production contracts can be awarded up to an expected value of US$500 million.
