Test Flights
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Stratolaunch Systems, the company behind the world's largest aircraft, is making headlines again. The firm's Talon-A1 hypersonic test aircraft has successfully completed its first powered flight, which took place last weekend in Mojave, California.
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eVTOLs are one of those things that many groups announce their plans to create, but fail to produce in physical form. Such is not the case with Overair's Butterfly, however, the just-unveiled prototype of which should soon begin flight testing.
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Two years ago, American air mobility company Electra announced that it was partnering with the US Air Force on the development of an ultra-short takeoff and landing (ultra-STOL) aircraft. Earlier this month, a demonstrator version of that plane made its first two flights.
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Back in 2021, we heard how the Mk-II Aurora suborbital spaceplane had made its first test flights … but it was using surrogate jet engines. Now, however, the vehicle has made its first flights using an actual rocket engine.
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Blue Origin came a step closer to crewed flights today as ground personnel stood in for astronauts during the 15th New Shepard suborbital space mission, carrying out preflight procedures and re-entering after the flight to rehearse post-flight procedures.
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The US Air Force's long anticipated first powered flight test of the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) hypersonic missile was scrubbed this week when the booster vehicle failed to launch from the B-52H Stratofortress bomber.
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Like a high-tech Russian nesting doll, a prototype US Air Force Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie combat drone being developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory dropped a smaller drone from its weapons bay during flight.
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Virgin Orbit has come up short on its first attempt to reach orbit today after the mission was terminated soon after ignition of its LauncherOne rocket, with the team now working through the data and gearing up for its next attempt.
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Preliminary results of an inquiry into the malfunctions that forced the CST-100 Starliner to return to Earth early on its first Orbital Flight Test indicate only intervention by ground control kept the unmanned capsule from being destroyed.
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The Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant helicopter has taken to the air for the first time at the Sikorsky facility in West Palm Beach. Designed to have twice the speed and range of conventional rotorcraft, the demonstrator aircraft is being developed as part of the US Army's Future Vertical Lift program.
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The number of Blue Origin rocket flights went into double digits today as the company's New Shepard booster completed its 10th suborbital mission (NS-10). At 9:05 am CST, the rocket lifted off and reached an altitude of 350,775 ft (66 mi, 107 km) during the 11-minute flight.
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Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl took to the skies over Southern California on November 18, 2018 carrying a 70-ft-long (21-m) rocket for the first time. The specially modified 747-400 aircraft with the LauncherOne booster under its port wing took off from Victorville, California on an 80-min test flight.
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