As part of the Pentagon’s lower office program, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) will be tested by the Australian company Hypersonix Launch Systems in the summer of next year.

The DART AE being worked on will be a three-metre, 300-kilogram, jet-powered demonstrator. It is expected to reach a hypersonic speed of Mach 7. Details of the first tests are still being clarified and will be revealed next year. But it is already clear that we are talking about the creation of an unmanned aircraft.

The plane will be ready next summer – the Pentagon is stepping up its efforts to develop hypersonic technologies. The DIU unit, a sub-unit of the Pentagon, characterizes itself as a structure focused on accelerating the implementation of commercial technologies and dual-purpose solutions to quickly solve operational tasks.

As part of the Pentagon’s defense initiatives, the DIU launched the HyCAT (high-paced testing capabilities) project, which provides commercial companies an opportunity to develop reusable and inexpensive flight test vehicles and reduce the strain on the US Department of Defense’s resources. .

It is also known that DIU has signed contracts with the Fenix ​​Space company to create a special towing platform for launches, and with the Rocket Lab company, which is engaged in preparing the flight of the Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron ( HASTE) suborbital hypersonic rocket.