An Australian-designed hypersonic aircraft has taken flight in space after Rocket Lab, the New Zealand-founded space company, successfully launched its latest mission for the United States.<\/p>\n
The HASTE rocket, cheekily named That\u2019s Not A Knife, lifted off from Wallops Island in Virginia at 11am (AEST) Saturday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport\u2019s Launch Complex 2.<\/p>\n
The launch marked Rocket Lab\u2019s 82nd overall and the company\u2019s third of the year.<\/p>\n
HASTE, short for hypersonic accelerator suborbital test electron, is a suborbital vehicle designed for test missions that enter space but do not remain in orbit. <\/p>\n
Footage of the launch captured the rocket streaking against a pitch-black backdrop, while an onboard camera offered a view looking down at Earth.<\/p>\n
The announcer quipped, \u201cWell, that\u2019s not a knife, that\u2019s our HASTE rocket on your screen there,\u201d describing the liftoff as a \u201ctextbook launch\u201d.<\/p>\n
This was Rocket Lab\u2019s second successful hypersonic test mission for the US Department of War\u2019s Defense Innovation Unit and the seventh HASTE launch overall, with a perfect success record to date.<\/p>\n
The mission saw the deployment of DART AE, a scramjet-powered aircraft developed by Australian aerospace engineering company Hypersonix, into a hypersonic suborbital flight environment at multiple times the speed of sound.<\/p>\n
Rocket Lab said the mission supported \u201ca critical national priority to advance hypersonic technology for the United States and its allies\u201d.<\/p>\n
Brian Rogers, Rocket Lab\u2019s vice president of global launch services, described the launch as \u201canother proud moment for the HASTE team and a great showcase of the important commercial platform it has become for the Department of War. <\/p>\n
\u201cRegular and reliable HASTE launches are helping to accelerate hypersonic readiness for the nation, and we take pride in providing the foundation to a new era of testing of this critical technology to protect the United States space security,\u201d Mr Rogers said.<\/p>\n
Hypersonix chief executive Matt Hill said flying DART AE in a real hypersonic environment marked a \u201cmajor milestone\u201d for the company\u2019s flight test programme and brought it closer to delivering reusable hypersonic capability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Australian-designed hypersonic aircraft has taken flight in space after Rocket Lab, the New Zealand-founded space company, successfully…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[255506,2095,64,255493,63,689,255504,255497,255495,255490,11387,51255,255491,123287,255503,244286,19117,69071,1736,187436,2041,2067,255502,677,255494,128,285,234954,69771,255498,255505,255496,255492,93971,255499,255500,2614,255501,21843,4899],"class_list":["post-509416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-aerospace-engineering-company","tag-america","tag-au","tag-aussie-hypersonic-aircraft","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-aerospace","tag-australian-aerospace-company","tag-australian-aerospace-engineering","tag-brian-rogers","tag-chief-executive","tag-commercial-platform","tag-dart-group-inc","tag-flight-test","tag-global-launch-services","tag-hypersonic-aircraft","tag-matt-hill","tag-multiple-times","tag-new-zealand","tag-newswire-news","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-not-a-knife","tag-oceania","tag-rocket-lab-haste","tag-science","tag-space","tag-space-company","tag-space-security","tag-suborbital-flight-environment","tag-suborbital-test","tag-suborbital-test-electron","tag-suborbital-test-mission","tag-success-rate","tag-textbook-launch","tag-textbook-takeoffaustralian-startup","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-us-department","tag-vice-president","tag-virginia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}