“This agreement for a new Hypersonics Test Bed will increase domestic capacity for hypersonic flight testing and leverage multiple commercially-available launch vehicles for ride-along hypersonic payloads,” the Defense Department said in a statement on Thursday.
The United States needs to be able to launch hypersonic flight tests more regularly in order to meet objectives in their development, the statement said.
The program will be managed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Test Resources Management Center, the statement also said.
The Defense Department is working with industry, academia and allies to field hypersonic warfighting capabilities in the early-to-mid 2020s, the statement added.
On Wednesday, the Defense Department announced a successful development test of a hypersonic rocket engine being jointly developed with Norway, known as the Tactical High-speed Offensive Ramjet for Extended Range (THOR-ER).
Advancements by strategic competitors such as Russia and China in the area of hypersonic propulsion have compelled the United States to intensify research efforts, Norwegian aerospace partner Nammo said.