Atlanta, Georgia-based Hermeus, an aerospace company developing Mach 5 aircraft, has received $60 million in a U.S. Air Force partnership for flight testing its first aircraft, Quarterhorse. The unmanned Quarterhorse will validate the company's proprietary turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) engine, based around the GE J85 turbojet engine. Quarterhorse will be the first of its kind to fly a TBCC engine.

The award was made under the AFWERX Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) program led by the Presidential and Executive Airlift Directorate (PE) as a follow-on to a Phase II SBIR contract. The collaboration also includes support from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

"Small business partnership is recognized by the U.S. Air Force as an important component to driving innovation. Reducing risk in high-speed transport technologies, as we are doing with this contract, provides near-term and long-term benefits to both the U.S. Air Force and the defense industrial base." said Lt. Col. Joshua Burger, the Vector Initiative program manager who is spearheading the effort. "We are very excited to see Hermeus translate their demonstrated successes in engine prototyping into flight systems."

Some may argue that it is impossible to flight test a TBCC engine across the full flight envelope for less than $100 million. However, Hermeus is taking a different approach than traditional high-speed flight test programs. Hermeus will be leveraging autonomous and reusable systems, focused requirements, and a hardware-rich program. These three strategies allow the team to incrementally push the envelope. Pushing more risk to flight allows Hermeus to move through the engineering life cycle quickly, reducing programmatic costs.

The technology set Hermeus has chosen positions the company in dual-use hypersonic technology, i.e. technologies normally used for civilian purposes but which may have military applications.

"While this partnership with the U.S. Air Force underscores U.S. Department of Defense interest in hypersonic aircraft, when paired with Hermeus' partnership with NASA announced in February 2021, it is clear that there are both commercial and defense applications for what we're building," said Hermeus CEO and co-founder, AJ Piplica.