CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Sept. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- American News Group News Commentary - The hardest part of building a hypersonic vehicle is not designing it. It is finding somewhere to fly it. Research and Markets values the global hypersonic technology market at approximately US$8.49 billion in 2025, rising to roughly US$15.73 billion by 2030 at a compound annual growth rate of about 13.2%. Allied Market Research, sizing the same category differently, projects it reaching approximately US$12.18 billion by 2030 and singles out air launch as one of the faster-growing modes within it, at a compound annual growth rate of around 11.3%. Both descriptions point at the same constraint. Demand for hypersonic hardware has outrun the capacity to test it.
Active Companies from around the markets with current developments this week include: Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE American: FJET), Rocket Lab Corporation (Nasdaq: RKLB), Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: KTOS), L3Harris Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: LHX), and Karman Holdings Inc. (NYSE: KRMN).
The scale of the response is visible in how the United States now buys test capacity. The Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed program, known as MACH-TB, exists specifically to expand the number and frequency of hypersonic flight test opportunities. Its second iteration, MACH-TB 2.0, is a US$1.45 billion effort. That is a substantial sum committed not to building weapons but to creating chances to fly the components that go into them.
Underneath that spending sits a physical problem. Sustained flight above Mach 5 subjects materials, sensors, seals and control surfaces to heat and pressure that ground facilities approximate rather than reproduce. Conventional wind tunnels deliver those conditions for seconds. Rocket-launched test flights deliver them properly but consume a vehicle each time and are scheduled in months. Between those two options is a gap: sustained supersonic exposure, repeatable, on a platform that lands and flies again.
Propulsion is the second constraint, and it is a different kind of problem. The solid rocket motors that power most tactical and hypersonic systems are energy-dense and reliable, and once ignited they burn until the propellant is gone. They cannot be throttled or restarted, and they are classed as explosive for handling and storage. Those characteristics are tolerable on a vertically launched vehicle. They are considerably less comfortable on hardware carried under the wing of a crewed aircraft, where handling, abort options and in-flight control all matter more.
Which is why the more interesting activity in this sector is happening at the intersection of the two: platforms that can deliver flight conditions repeatedly, and propulsion that is safe enough and controllable enough to be carried by them.
Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE American: FJET) Enters MOU With Vaya Defense & Space to Explore Air-Launch Propulsion and Captive-Carry Testing
- Memorandum of understanding entered into with Vaya Defense & Space, Inc., a privately held developer of the patented Vortex-Hybrid rocket engine.
- Two collaboration tracks: flying Vaya hypersonic test articles on the Wind Tunnel in the Sky service, and assessing Vaya propulsion for the STARLAUNCH air-launch system.
- The joint technical assessment is expected to cover propulsion performance and packaging, vehicle and payload integration, and methodologies for operating from the F-104's underwing stations.
- Both companies are located on Florida's Space Coast with facilities only miles apart; under the MOU Starfighters is to have access to Vaya's propulsion lab and precision machining facility.
- The MOU is an agreement to explore collaboration. It is not a definitive agreement, and no revenue is attached to it.
Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE American: FJET), which operates the world's only commercial fleet of flight-ready Mach 2+ supersonic aircraft, announced on September 9, 2026 that it has entered into a memorandum of understanding with Vaya Defense & Space, Inc. to explore collaboration on supersonic captive-carry flight testing and air-launch propulsion. Further detail is available at starfightersspace.com.
The two tracks address the two constraints described above, which is what makes the pairing worth reading closely rather than filing as another announcement. Under the first, the companies plan to evaluate flying Vaya hypersonic test articles and other payloads on Starfighters' Wind Tunnel in the Sky service, which uses F-104 aircraft to expose hardware to sustained Mach 2+ flight conditions for technology validation and maturation. The distinction from a ground facility is duration: sustained exposure rather than a pulse, on an aircraft that returns and can fly the article again.
Under the second, the parties plan to assess whether Vaya's hybrid propulsion is suitable for STARLAUNCH, the Company's air-launch system, beginning with suborbital missions. Vaya's Vortex-Hybrid engine pairs a 3D-printed, non-explosive thermoplastic fuel grain with a liquid oxidizer, which the company states delivers full-authority throttling and in-flight restart, capabilities not available from conventional solid rocket motors.
"Vaya has spent years maturing a propulsion technology that is throttleable, restartable, and non-explosive, which is close to an ideal profile for a vehicle carried under the wing of an aircraft," said Tim Franta, Chief Executive Officer of Starfighters Space. "Their shop is also a short drive from our hangar at Kennedy Space Center. That combination of technical fit and proximity allows us to develop and test hardware faster than either of us could alone."
"Air launch puts a premium on propulsion that is compact, safe to handle, and controllable in flight, all reasons we designed our technology the way we did," said Dr. Wes Naylor, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vaya. "Starfighters offers a flight environment that is difficult to replicate on the ground and a near-term path to demonstrating our technology in the air."
The geography is not incidental. Both companies sit on Florida's Space Coast with facilities only miles apart, and under the MOU Starfighters is to have access to Vaya's propulsion lab and precision machining facility for engineering collaboration, prototyping, engine testing and flight hardware development. Iteration speed on hardware is largely a function of how long it takes to get a modified part back onto a test stand, and a short drive is a meaningful advantage over a shipping manifest.
Starfighters operates a fleet of F-104 aircraft based at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Midland International Air and Space Port in Texas. The Company describes the aircraft as configurable as a platform for air-launched payloads, pilot training, and to support research, development, test and evaluation for hypersonic technologies, advanced materials, missile defense systems, microgravity science, spaceflight hardware validation and defense electronic systems.
There's many exiting developments in the hypersonic test and propulsion chain, the same two constraints are visible at every level:
Rocket Lab Corporation (Nasdaq: RKLB) has built the largest commercial business in hypersonic flight testing, and its scale is the clearest measure of how much the government is willing to spend to buy test opportunities. Its HASTE vehicle is a suborbital variant of the Electron rocket with a modified upper kick stage tailored for hypersonic technology tests and a payload capacity of up to approximately 700 kilograms.
On March 18, 2026 the company announced a US$190 million contract for a block buy of 20 hypersonic test flights with HASTE for the Test Resource Management Center's MACH-TB 2.0 program, to be performed over a four-year period under Task Area 1. It described the award as the single largest launch agreement in its history at the time. Company disclosure is available through its investor relations newsroom.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer Sir Peter Beck framed the expanded partnership as delivering hypersonic capability with speed and affordability. The company has subsequently been reported to have received a further United States Space Force award for up to 18 suborbital missile defense launches, surpassing the March contract in size.
The comparison worth drawing is one of method rather than scale. A HASTE flight delivers hypersonic conditions and consumes a vehicle to do it. A captive-carry platform delivers sustained supersonic conditions and lands. Those are different products serving different points in a development programme, and a test campaign that can use the cheaper one first generally does.
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: KTOS) occupies the position that determines who gets to fly at all. It leads Task Area 1 of MACH-TB 2.0, the US$1.45 billion program designed to expand the number and frequency of hypersonic test opportunities for the United States, and it selects and manages the subcontractors that perform the flights.
That role makes it the clearest illustration of how this market actually works. Test capacity is procured centrally, through a program office and a prime integrator, rather than bought piecemeal on the open market. For any company offering a test platform, the commercially significant question is not only whether the platform works but whether it is inside a program of record. Kratos also develops affordable target and unmanned systems of its own, so it is a customer, a competitor and a gatekeeper depending on which part of the business is in view.
The structure cuts both ways for a smaller platform operator. Programs of this kind consolidate demand, which makes it harder to sell around them. They also create a defined route in, which is more than existed before MACH-TB was established.
L3Harris Technologies, Inc.
