Hypersonica, an Anglo-German defence start-up developing what it describes as a sovereign European hypersonic strike capability, has completed its first successful hypersonic test flight in Norway, reaching speeds above Mach 6 and covering more than 300 kilometres.
The company said the flight was carried out at Andøya Space on 10 February and marked the first time a privately funded European defence firm had achieved a hypersonic missile test at that performance level. Hypersonica stated that all systems performed as expected throughout the vehicle’s ascent and descent through the atmosphere.
According to the company, the prototype accelerated to speeds exceeding Mach 6, which it said equated to more than 7,400 kilometres per hour. It added that system performance was validated down to subcomponent level under hypersonic flight conditions, providing datasets that will inform future design work and analysis.
Hypersonica’s co-founders, chief executive Dr Philipp Kerth and chief technology officer Dr Marc Ewenz, said the test was a major step towards the firm’s ambition to field a European hypersonic strike capability by 2029.
“Hypersonica has achieved a major milestone on our pathway to developing Europe’s first sovereign hypersonic strike capability by 2029,” they said in a statement. “Our test flight yielded invaluable datasets that will inform the design and development of future high-speed strike systems and enhance our ability to analyse adversary weapon profiles.”
They added that the company’s rapid development cycle was intended to challenge assumptions about the time and cost required to build advanced strike systems.
“As a privately funded startup, our speed from design to the launchpad in just 9 months should recalibrate expectations about the costs and time needed to develop this crucial capability,” they said.
Hypersonica said its development plan involves successive test flights designed to build capability in phases, including flight control at hypersonic speeds, manoeuvrability, and eventually full mission requirements. It described its architecture as modular, allowing upgrades and shorter development cycles compared with conventional approaches.
The company claimed its approach could reduce costs by more than 80% compared with traditional programmes, and said it would support Europe’s ability to meet timelines aligned with NATO and UK hypersonic frameworks targeting the 2030 period.
“This is a proud moment for European defence innovation,” the founders said, adding that the company pursued the work with a focus on responsible development.
Hypersonica, founded in December 2023 by former University of Oxford researchers, is headquartered near Munich and operates a wholly owned subsidiary in London.
V3.
😆
Impressive!
What kind of flight path does it take and what phases can it reach/maintain mach 6?
Gosh.
It interesting, what with project night fall, the UK German 2000km weapon, the UK 600km cheap effector, building more storm shadows, storm shadows replacement, this and versions Europe is going to have so so many ways to bomb the crap about of Russia with conventional strategic weapons.. I do think they may have go together, though about what would Putin really fear..and what he fears is actually things that go bang and smash a nation.. strategic weapons..the thing that Ukrainians have never really had much access to and the thing Russia has hammered Ukraine with.
Probably more than anything if Europe had 10,000 strategic weapons and the ability to build 1000 a month, Putin would get back in his box.
This is indeed very significant as it will get past his S300/400 quite easily.
9 months is seriously impressive to get to a test – bravo for the reductionist thinking that takes.
These things can be done – look at SpaceX – drive and determination coupled with invested brilliant engineers.
Drones are getting past S300 and S400!
That could just be because of small radar returns or they are slower than the dipper notch etc.
SB,
Actually, damned impressive, based upon personal experience. Typically, still creating/organizing the System Program Office (SPO) in that timeframe. Have to ensure everyone can find the coffee station. 😉😁
Totally agree.
Mach6 for 300km on the first go is really good.
I just assume they will scale it for the next test?
having only a physics o level, still skeptical of hypersonic. the upside of this is the UK gov cannot justify squandering £££ on a research project when a start up is doing it for cheap as chips.
“the UK gov cannot justify squandering £££ on a research project”. I bet they can.
I’m slightly suspicious of this company tbh, there’s no sign of this becoming a deployable capability and certainly no mention of a payload. Apart from the glide vehicle itself which is hardly in frame, the whole vehicle looks a little like an oversized hobby rocket.
We do need a whole load of stuff to chuck over the border and I think that launching Brakestop and Nightfall from Estonia should be one of the main roles the Army adopts post-DIP. The RAF could operate the later longer ranged IRBMs that should also be developed and the 2000km cruise missile, but the Army should get the job as one of their remaining roles after a proper pivot to maritime.
R&D has to start somewhere.
Getting a something to move under guidance for 300km at Mach6 is a great proving step.
If in 9 months time that can move a 250kg block of concrete at Mach6 for 300km do you think a viable weapon would be closer?
True, just so long as the glide vehicle works they can scale up. We also don’t know how big their demonstrator is- the vehicle itself looks about 2-3m long while the booster is a further 4-6m so if they can get a better booster motor then scaling up should allow a payload.
The important thing is if they can make the missile compact for air, VLS and vehicle launch. At the moment it looks almost like it could fit in mk41 which would be an interesting ‘snap-shot’ AShM.
To be honest you don’t really need much of a warhead if the terminal stage is 6 times the speed of sound.. kinetic energy at that speed will do for most things as long as your CEP is good.
It depends what you are trying to do really.
If you need a hittile then fine a Blue Circle warhead might do the job. But may need something harder and denser for penetration.
If you are trying to get through defences and destroy something you may well need a warhead.
There was a rumour a few months ago that CPS only had a 20kg explosive warhead which initially attracted some mockery, at which point it was pointed out that the warhead probably functioned mostly as a bursting charge for a bunch of hypersonic ball bearings which would ruin anybody’s day.
Something like that would suit this missile for blatting TELs and radars ashore or at sea, but as it is currently outranged by Storm Shadow I think it needs a bit more development in boosters, manoeuvring and targeting to be a useful weapon.
The company is also almost entirely German, they describe themselves as Anglo-german to try to win the hypersonics contracts but they aren’t a sovereign capability.
“From Little Acorns”.
Sorry I appreciate the need for funding and all that but the adds are intrusive enough and repeatedly cover the screen on mobile devices. To have to watch more videos to access the site which is still covered in the other adds im afraid im likely to bang out.
If you had one or the other but its too much.
Just my opinion guys
What Adds ?
He is referring to the fact that to view an article now you have to watch a short video Ad or start a subscription. Or are you just doing a play on the mis-spelling of Ad?
What? No subs, no adds.
Oh, I don’t get any Adds or Ads, I’m totaly Add/ad free.
It’s simple, I just pay for a daily delivery and wait for the Paper Boy/Girl to Shove It In My Box.
Doesn’t work on mobile properly.. if you hit the x the box goes away and carry on as normal
I post that and it changes 😆
I was about to suggest that @George offers a totally add free experience for a small subscription. I’d be amazed if the regulars actually click on the range of rubbish ads I get.
I get some very weird ads when I open this site so I’m at cautious about opening it in a professional environment.
They’re based off your browsing history sometimes, you know… 😉
Not always: it is a confluence of what people look at and click on that is displayed on site ads and what you look at elsewhere. Ultimately advertisers serve what gets clicked on – on that particular site.
It also heavily depends on what the ad server thinks the site is about. As this is quite niche it probably doesn’t neatly fall into any of the groupings.
For instance I’m often served ads, on here, about ‘Ukrainian women’ – I think you can guess what those look like – that is a search I’ve never performed. However, this site will have a very high density of mentions of Ukrainian. It is the only reason I can think of why they would be served.
😁🤔😱
Use adblocker browser like Brave
Jeeees,
No Insults 🤔😁
Fantastic results, in an impressive-ish amout of time. My only concern would be that as it is a privately funded ‘venture’, would their ‘wares’ be readily available to the highest bidder?
th uk HAD THIS TECHNOLOGY YEARS AGO, COURTESY OF A COMPANY CALLED reaction engine, BAE were said to have takenm over that company so WTF are the Germans doing in here????
COLIN BROOKS AKA DUNG
Absolutely irrelevant.
Dung by name, dung by nature 💩🤡🤣
There’s no way Reaction Engines could have built something this cheaply. Their tech might have had applications for very large hypersonic missiles with strategic ranges, but this is probably behaving more like a flattened aeroballistic missile and so can be a lot cheaper.
🤣
Depressingly the USA website ‘DEFENCE NEWS’ Describes this as a German ‘start up’ company based in Munich.
Lions led by wankers IMHO
Isn’t that correct?
Well the EDJ describes it as an anglo german start up?
“Anglo-German” is also on their website but I see it as marketing to make a small start-up look multinational. Founders are German, it’s based in Germany and funding is from various sources. What they have is a subsidiary in London but that does not make it Anglo-German, BAE Systems is British even if it has subsidiaries everywhere.
The joke is that similar missiles have been around for years and we are just catching on. Korea, Turkey, Israel are all producing them.
If this produces something truck deployable like the Israeli LORA it would be good. Could defence contractors operate them rather than the small regular army?
Even better would be something like the air launched LORA which has been carried by the F-16. Give Typhoon that capability. That means UK based RAF Typhoon with tanker support would put Russian naval and air defence assets at risk.
It’s about time we got on the ladder & hopefully we can climb a bit faster than everyone else. As the country who invented the jet engine, we should be at the forefront of this sort of technology.
Test it on Number Ten Downing Street.