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NASA Wallops Flight Facility
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) reports it has launched a Hypersonic Testbed (HTB) to demonstrate a new experimental testing platform.
The MDA also confirmed that Kratos built HTB-1, which was launched June 12 from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. A Kratos spokesperson says the testbed is the Erinyes flyer, a hypersonic vehicle that the company revealed two years ago. A three-stage Oriole-Terrier-Terrier stack of sounding rockets launched the Erinyes to a hypersonic speed, the Kratos spokesperson says.
The MDA’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor observed the flight from low Earth orbit, the agency notes. The satellite reached orbit in mid-February to serve as an experimental platform for tracking from space the dim signatures of hypersonic vehicles against the warm background of the planet.
“HTB-1 represents a significant step forward in hypersonic testing capability,” explains Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, the MDA director.
The agency plans to share data collected from the HTB-1 flight with “many partners” as part of its wider effort to develop new defenses against maneuvering hypersonic weapons.
Several companies want to be the sources of such suborbital, hypersonic launches by the MDA and other Defense Department agencies.
A Kratos Defense executive said in May that the Zeus rocket and the Erinyes and Dark Fury hypersonic vehicles could be flown later this year, adding they are designed for supporting ballistic missile defense tests.
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