Gold Coast-based Gilmour Space Technologies has announced a new suborbital flight test service for commercial and defence customers requiring hypersonic speeds.
Gilmour Space Technologies, gearing up for its first orbital launch in December, has unveiled its Hyper Flight service.
Set to launch in 2025 from various potential sites, this service will leverage the company’s existing orbital launch vehicle technology to achieve speeds above Mach 5, or more than five times the speed of sound.
David Doyle, Gilmour Space’s director of launch vehicles and satellites, highlighted the increasing demand for hypersonic research and development, particularly following the AUKUS trilateral security partnership involving Australia, the UK, and the US.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in the development of hypersonic vehicles and related technologies,” said Doyle. “As these concepts move from the drawing board to prototypes, there’s a growing need for high-speed flight testing capabilities beyond what ground-based facilities can offer.”
While wind tunnel tests are valuable for early-stage hypersonic research, providing hypersonic flow for 200 to 300 milliseconds, Doyle noted that scaling these tests to full-size applications remains challenging.
The new HyPeRsonic Flight Test (HPRFLT or Hyper Flight) service aims to fill this gap by offering a real-life testing environment for researchers and companies, helping to advance their innovations to higher Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs).
“This is a sovereign, Australian solution for a low-cost, rapid hypersonic testbed essential for advancing early-stage research to higher TRL technologies,” Doyle added. “It will be crucial for the Australian Defence Force and our allies.”
Founded by brothers Adam and James Gilmour, the company raised $55 million in a Series D round earlier this year, bringing its total capital raised to approximately $143 million and its valuation to $605 million as of early 2024.
In March, Gilmour Space was granted Australia’s first orbital launch facility license under the Space (Launches & Returns) Act 2018, with a planned launch from its Bowen Orbital Spaceport later this year.
News and image source: Gilmour Space Technologies
