Missile Defense Agency awards $24.7 million 'flight campaign' to Stratolaunch

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has awarded Stratolaunch LLC a $24.7 million contract to provide a “flight campaign” that will support several test objectives for the agency. MDA announced the contract award on Friday.

Stratolaunch LLC, located in Mojave, Calif, is being awarded a competitive firm-fixed-price other transaction agreement valued at $24,749,990.00, MDA said in the announcement.

“Under this new agreement, the performer will provide a flight campaign in support of Missile Defense Agency test objectives,” MDA said in the brief announcement.

Aircraft Fleet

Stratolaunch operates two massive aircraft that can air-launch payloads to space and within the Earth’s atmosphere at a reduced cost with more flexibility than current vertical launch options.

One aircraft, named Roc, has six Boeing 747 engines and a wingspan of 385 feet – longer than an American football field, Roc is the largest of any plane ever assembled with a payload capacity of 550,000 pounds.

The company also operates a Boeing 747 known as “Spirit of Mojave.” The Boeing 747 is a readily deployable launch platform able to test a variety of payloads from a variety of locations.

Both aircraft operate as an air launch platform for space vehicles or hypersonic research.

Fully Funded Work

The work under the new MDA contract will be performed in Mojave. The period of performance is December 2024 through December 2025.

“This agreement was competitively awarded via the MDA Innovation, Science & Technology Broad Agency Announcement, Solicitation No, HQ0860-23-S-0001,” MDA said. “This effort will be fully funded with Fiscal Year 2024 Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) funds.”

The Missile Defense Agency Redstone Arsenal in Alabama is managing the contract. The announcement doesn’t state which aircraft will be used for the MDA flight campaign.

According to Aviation Week, Stratolaunch is going through final approvals to conduct its first reusable test flight of the Talon A hypersonic testbed by the end of the month. That test will use the Spirit of Mojave aircraft.

Success in March

In March, Stratolaunch completed the first powered flight of the Talon-A test vehicle, TA-1. This was the first flight in the development of the country's first privately funded, reusable hypersonic test capability.

“While I can’t share the specific altitude and speed TA-1 reached due to proprietary agreements with our customers, we are pleased to share that in addition to meeting all primary and customer objectives of the flight, we reached high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5 and collected a great amount of data at an incredible value to our customers,” said Zachary Krevor, president and CEO of Stratolaunch.