TA-1 First Flight

[Zack Krevor] In general, this is a new era. It's a historic flight. Never before has a company performed hypersonic flight in this manner. [over radio] “Guys be safe, have a good flight.” [Aaron Cassebeer] Today is the culmination of over four years of effort, It's our first attempt at lighting the engine on Talon-A. So it's our first powered flight. [over radio] “Attention Mojave area traffic, Mojave tower is open.” [Zack] the goal is to release, get engine ignition, accelerate- punching throu

gh the transonic and high supersonic regime and then bringing it down into the water. [over radio] “The final inspection is complete and everything looks really good. We’re good to fly.” [Aaron] Ultimately what we are trying to do at Stratolaunch is to help our country operate hypersonic flight much more regularly, more affordably and repeatably. The last time we had a reusable hypersonic flight test vehicle was the X-15 in the 1960s. [Zack] ...but that was all with government funding. This is t

he first time that there's been such a test bed with fully privatized funding. [over radio] “Test Control, you’re cleared in: Card 9 Bravo.” [Zack] Team’s pretty excited. I'd say there's a lot of nervous optimism right now. [over radio] “Guys be safe, have a good flight.” [over radio] “Thanks Ricky.” “Thanks so much.” You get to that point in a test program where it's time to fly... ...and today is that day. [over radio] “Mojave Tower, Roc 01 super experimental ready for take-off...” [over radio

] “Roc 01 super experimental, Mojave Tower roger. [over radio] “Runway 30 wind 340 at 3 cleared for take-off.” [over radio] “Request range status.” [over radio] “Green Range.” [over radio] “Copy.” [over radio] “System 1... armed.” [over radio] “System 2... armed.” [over radio] “Looking for data.” [over radio] “Good data.” [over radio] “Pre-drop, ready...” [over radio] “now.” [over radio] “Timer started.” [over radio] “Five” [over radio] “Four” [over radio] “Three...” [over radio] “Release.” [ove

r radio] “Good release.” [over radio] “Stable.” [over radio] “Ignition.” [over radio] “Oh yeah!” [over radio] “That is amazing.” [over radio] “Into the sun.” [over radio] “Engine shut-down.” [over radio] “Good glide.” [over radio] “Be advised, we have a super experimental” [over radio] “inbound for runway 30.” [over radio] “All systems good for landing.” [over radio] “Mojave tower, roger. Cleared for the option.” [Aaron] Today is many different departments, many different people’s work coming to

gether... ... and it's a huge day for this company. [Zack] The hardest part of this has been ensuring that we have all the resources that the team needs and there's no roadblocks and they can get this done as quickly and as safely as possible. [Aaron] In this country... ...there's only a handful of hypersonic flight tests that actually occur each year And... when you're only flying a few times a year that’s not enough. And so this has been a long time coming. The nations needed it for decades...

...so there's a huge drive to learn, and to learn quickly, and to advance the technology.