Naomi Cooper
Brian Rogers, senior director of global launch services at Rocket Lab, said he expects to see an increased demand for the Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron, a modified version of the company’s Electron launch vehicle, as the Department of Defense continues to invest in hypersonics, C4ISRNET reported Saturday.
The suborbital testbed launch vehicle took its inaugural flight from a launch site at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia in June in support of the Pentagon’s Multi-Service Advanced Hypersonic Testbed.
Rogers said the initial launch meant to prove that Rocket Lab could modify Electron to support various launch missions.
Rocket Lab plans to further modify HASTE based on customers’ launch mission requirements, according to Rogers.
Since its initial launch, HASTE has been selected to support hypersonic test launch capabilities of multiple government agencies, including the Defense Innovation Unit.
DIU tapped Rocket Lab to design a prototype hypersonic launch capability on HASTE under the agency’s hypersonic and high-cadence testing capabilities initiative.
