Queensland rocket maker Gilmour Space is getting into the hypersonic flight test business

Rocket developer and satellite launcher Gilmour Space Technologies will kick off a new suborbital flight test service in Australia next year for commercial and defence customers that require hypersonic speeds above Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound).

The move comes amid frustrating delays in approval to launch the first Australian-made orbital rocket, developed by Gilmour, from its launch facility in Bowen, Queensland. The 23-metres-high Eris rocket has been sitting on the launch pad since mid-April and the team had hoped for a launch permit from the Australian Space Agency for May, and then July, but now, more than 3.5 months later, they’re still awaiting the paperwork for its first test flight.

In the meantime, David Doyle, director of launch vehicles and satellites at Gilmour Space, has spotted another pain point for the sector they’re hoping to solve.

“We’ve witnessed a surge in the research and development of hypersonic vehicles, materials, and other related technologies in recent years, especially since AUKUS (a trilateral security partnership involving Australia, the UK and US),” he said.

“However, as many of these ideas progress from concept to prototyping and testing, we’re also seeing a growing bottleneck in high-speed flight test capabilities, beyond what ground-based shock tunnel testing and simulations can offer.”

Doyle added that while wind tunnel tests, which can only offer hypersonic flow for 200 to 300 milliseconds, are excellent for early-stage testing of materials and geometries with scaled-down models, scaling the technology to full-size applications is still a major challenge.

This isn’t about getting into space – it’s about being able to move through Earth’s atmosphere at the next level above supersonic (Mach 1-4) speeds.

Mach 5 is 1 mile (1.6km) a second.

Boeing experimented with the idea 20 years ago with the X-51 Waverider, before the project was shelved, India has been working on the Shaurya hypersonic missile in response to China’s DF-17 ballistic Hypersonic Glide Vehicle, amid strategic concerns that China is leading the hypersonic race.

Getting to those speeds are filled with challenges Australian researchers have been investing, including hypersonics experiments by UNSW Canberra while the University of Queensland (UQ) has looked at propulsion and the University of Southern Queensland has been collaborating with Brisbane startup Hypersonix, which has developed a 3-metre, single use, 3D-printed hypersonic drone, called the Dart, powered by a hydrogen-fuelled scramjet engine. The project is now at demonstration level.

Earlier this month Hypersonix signed a deal with the UK Ministry of Defence to develop hypersonic capabilities.

Gilmour Space is hoping to give a helping hand to other defence tech companies hoping to have a crack.

“Our new HyPeRsonic FLight Test – HPRFLT or Hyper Flight – service will help to bridge that gap by providing a real-life environment for researchers and companies to test, demonstrate, and advance their innovations to higher Technology Readiness Levels in Australia,” David Doyle said.

“This is a sovereign, Australian solution for a low-cost, rapid turnkey, hypersonic testbed that will be essential for translating early-stage research into high TRL technologies and platforms that can be used by the Australian Defence Force and our allies.”

The Gilmour Space Hyper Flight service is set to launch in 2025 from a few potential sites, yet to be announced.