Brisbane aerospace company Hypersonix Launch Systems has flown its DART AE hypersonic aircraft for the first time, after it was launched on a Rocket Lab HASTE rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia, on 27 February 2026 (US time) for the US Defense Innovation Unit.
Hypersonic flight, at five or more times the speed of sound, is one of the most contested areas of defence technology, and only a handful of countries have flown hypersonic vehicles. The mission, officially named That’s Not A Knife, put an Australian designed and built aircraft into a real hypersonic flight environment. “Successfully flying DART AE in a real hypersonic environment validates years of disciplined engineering,” Hypersonix chief executive Matt Hill said in Rocket Lab’s announcement.
The engine
DART AE is a 3.5 metre aircraft powered by SPARTAN, a reusable scramjet with no moving parts. It runs on hydrogen instead of kerosene, so it produces no carbon dioxide, and the company says it is designed to reach Mach 12. The airframe is made from high-temperature alloys and is described as the world’s first entirely 3D printed hypersonic launch platform airframe, SmartCompany reported.
The technology behind SPARTAN was developed by co-founder Dr Michael Smart, a former NASA research scientist who is now Hypersonix’s chief technology officer. He founded the company in 2019 with David Waterhouse.
The flight
Hypersonix was selected from 60 applicants as the first prototype contract under HyCAT, a hypersonic testing program run by the Defense Innovation Unit, according to SmartCompany. Rocket Lab said the payload was deployed into a suborbital hypersonic flight environment. It was the seventh launch of HASTE, Rocket Lab’s suborbital testing variant of its Electron rocket, and the second Defense Innovation Unit hypersonic test in three months. Neither company has publicly released detailed flight data.
The money
Hypersonix raised a $46 million Series A in October 2025, with the federal government’s National Reconstruction Fund Corporation and the Queensland government’s investment arm among the backers. The NRFC did not disclose the size of its investment. NRFC chief executive David Gall said the fund sees “huge potential in backing Australian companies and innovations that build our sovereign capability”.
The company employs about 45 people in Brisbane. Its next planned aircraft is VISR, an 8 metre reusable, hydrogen-fuelled hypersonic aircraft for surveillance, rapid delivery and space system testing, and it plans to build advanced manufacturing capability in Queensland.
Jack’s take
A team of about 45 people in Brisbane has flown something most countries cannot. Hypersonics is one of the most strategically important technologies in the world, and it is a big deal that Australia has a company that has actually got an aircraft into that environment. Most Australians have never heard of it, and that should change.