Aside from being a key technology demonstrator, the Mk-II holds significant commercial promise as a suborbital vehicle, spanning a wide range of applications such as earth monitoring, microgravity research, disaster management, and in-situ atmospheric measurements - providing unprecedented enhancements to weather and climate models.
Our team has been diligently designing and building the Mk-II Aurora spaceplane since 2018. We have completed 48 test flights using jet engines, validating all non-rocket systems.
We have now also concluded static integrated testing of the Mk-II Aurora engine. During the rocket engine's development, it was fired 112 times, including seven instances where it was integrated with the vehicle.
With vehicle certification and integration testing completed, we are thrilled to announce that rocket-powered flights are set to begin within the next month.
Initial flights will continue to follow a build-up approach, as we have done in the past. The first flights will reach modest speeds and altitudes while aiming to maintain the rapid test cadence we have previously demonstrated using surrogate jet engines.
Exciting times ahead!
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