Ursa Major has signed a $ 32.9 million contract with Stratolaunch for the supply of 16 advanced rocket engines for testing hypersonic aircraft. The new powerplants are designed for the Talon-A reusable vehicle and represent an upgraded version of the Hadley engine with the designation H13.
The H13 engine is designed with an emphasis on increasing the number of possible missions by more than two times compared to the previous version. According to Chris Spagnoletti, president of the Ursa Major liquid systems division, this will significantly reduce the cost of each flight and increase the efficiency of the program.
The basic version of the Hadley develops 5,000 pounds of thrust and runs on liquid oxygen and kerosene using the oxygen-rich afterburning scheme that is traditionally used in orbital-class engines. This type of design provides high reliability and efficiency in extreme hypersonic flight conditions.
Stratolaunch will use Talon-A in the interests of the US Department of Defense as a platform for testing at speeds above Mach five. The device is launched from the world's largest aircraft in terms of wingspan and is used to develop promising technologies in the field of hypersound.
Reusable solutions like Talon-A are considered by the Pentagon as a key element for reducing costs and simplifying the logistics of hypersonic tests, which traditionally remain among the most expensive and complex from an engineering point of view.
