Rocket Lab will launch a scramjet-powered hypersonic vehicle for the US military today (February 25), and you can watch the liftoff live.
the companies HASTE suborbital rocket is scheduled to take off today at 4 pm EST (2100 GMT) from rocket laboratory‘s Launch Complex 2 on Wallops Island, Virginia, transporting a hypersonic demonstrator called DART AE to the final frontier.
DART AE is a 3-meter-long technology demonstrator built by Australian aerospace company Hypersonix. It is “designed to validate advanced propulsion, materials, sensors and guidance systems under real-world hypersonic flight conditions,” the company said in a statement. statement earlier this month.
Hypersonic vehicles travel at least five times faster than the speed of sound. They also tend to be highly maneuverable, making them more difficult to intercept than ballistic missiles and therefore quite attractive to the armies of the United States and other nations.
The next mission, which Hypersonix calls “Cassowary Vex,” will be the first for DART AE. The demonstrator is powered by Spartan, the company’s 3D-printed scramjet engine.
Scramjets inject fuel into the air flowing through them faster than the speed of sound. That is the main difference between a scramjet and a ramjet, which works with slower-moving air. (“Scramjet” is short for “supersonic combustion ramjet”).
Hypersonix says they use a propellant that makes their scramjet cleaner than most. “Unlike conventional kerosene-powered scramjets, SPARTAN uses hydrogen, producing zero CO2 emissions and offering a usable, low-maintenance solution for a variety of high-speed aerospace and defense missions,” the company said in the same statement.
DART AE will fly today for the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), a branch of the US military dedicated to adapting commercial technology for national security uses. It will be HASTE’s second DIU mission, following a November 2025 launch that Rocket Lab called “Prometheus Race.“
As its name suggests, HASTE is a modified suborbital version of the 59-foot-tall (18 m) Electron, Rocket Lab’s orbital launcher workhorse. (“HASTE” stands for “Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron”).
HASTE is a testbed that provides “reliable, high-cadence flight test opportunities necessary to advance the development of hypersonic and suborbital systems technology,” according to Rocket Lab website.
The suborbital rocket debuted in June 2023. Today’s mission, which Rocket Lab calls “That’s Not a Knife,” will be its seventh flight to date. DART AE required a 4.3 m (14.1 ft) long payload fairing – the longest custom HASTE fairing yet. according to the rocket laboratory.
Electron, for its part, already has 75 releases under its belt.
