Sandra Erwin
The U.S. is re-entering the era of reusable hypersonic flight testing for the first time in more than half a century, using an autonomous drone developed by Stratolaunch.
The hypersonic vehicle named Talon A2 exceeded Mach 5—the threshold for hypersonic speed—in two Pentagon-backed test flights conducted in December 2024 and March 2025, the Defense Department confirmed May 5.
The flights mark the first time since the X-15 program, which ended in 1968, that the U.S. has conducted reusable hypersonic testing.
The X-15 hypersonic research program was a collaboration with NASA, the U.S. Air Force and the Navy. It operated for nearly 10 years and set a speed record of Mach 6.7. The program contributed to the development of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo piloted spaceflight programs as well as the Space Shuttle program.
The Talon-A is operated by Stratolaunch, a company founded in 2011 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The flights were conducted under the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) program, a Defense Department initiative aimed at accelerating hypersonic weapons development by tapping into commercially available testing platforms. Stratolaunch works under a contract from Leidos, which manages MACH-TB on behalf of the Pentagon’s Test Resource Management Center.
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