The concept addresses one of the main cost drivers in ramjet testing. Ramjets need substantial initial speed to operate, often requiring a large expendable booster for each flight.
Quarterhorse will instead carry Ramjet-X to the speed and altitude needed for launch. After releasing the test vehicle, the aircraft will return for future missions while Ramjet-X continues under ramjet power.
Hermeus plans to use the system to offer high-Mach Flight Test as a Service. The commercial model is intended to give customers access to flight conditions that have historically been costly and difficult to reproduce.
Customers and partners will be able to install sensors, payloads, communications and computing equipment on Ramjet-X. The platform can also carry autonomy software, material samples, propulsion technologies and other experimental systems.
Hermeus will provide the vehicle, reusable launch aircraft and flight-test infrastructure. Customers can therefore focus on the equipment being evaluated rather than building a separate high-speed vehicle and test program for each experiment.
“High-speed flight testing is extremely expensive, and you don’t get many shots at it,” said Zach Shore, chief executive officer of Hermeus. “Ramjet-X gives us a way to put new systems into sustained high-Mach environments without building an expensive one-off test program every time.”
“Bringing speed, sustained flight, and scalability all into one system lowers the barriers to gathering extremely valuable data from these conditions and accelerates programs for both us and our customers,” Shore said. The company expects the repeatable launch architecture to support both its internal development work and external testing.
Development is already under way at Hermeus facilities in Florida and California. The ramjet engine is being tested at the company’s HEAT site in Jacksonville, while high-temperature structures are being developed at its headquarters in El Segundo.
