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In March 2025,  (Mojave, Calif., U.S.) successfully completed its second hypersonic flight and recovery with the Talon-A2 (TA-2) fully autonomous vehicle (read about the TA-0 separation flight in 2023). In addition, following TA-2’s first flight in December 2024, the company confirms the vehicle’s reusability. In March, TA-2 surpassed Mach 5 during its trajectory for the second time, exceeding the previous speed record set with the December flight.

“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,” says Dr. Zachary Krevor, president and CEO of Stratolaunch. “We’ve now demonstrated hypersonic speed, added the complexity of a full runway landing with prompt payload recovery and proven reusability.”

Supporting the U.S.’ defense initiatives, Stratolaunch is focused on expanding its hypersonic flight testing and ensuring the long-term sustainability of reusable hypersonic testbeds. These completed flights demonstrate the U.S.’ return to reusable hypersonic flight test since the X-15 program ended in 1968. 

To date, Stratolaunch has executed four Talon-A flights, completed 24 Roc flights and flown two new supersonic and hypersonic airplanes.

Stratolaunch performed the flights for the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC) Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) program under a partnership with Leidos. The MACH-TB program is intended to increase the speed of testing for all commercially available hypersonic systems. This was the second Stratolaunch flight completed on behalf of the program.