The Air Force has a vital and urgent defense mission need for hypersonic testing and technology maturation to meet real-time requirements and match mounting threats from near-peer adversaries like China and Russia. LongshotÂ’s hypersonic accelerator will provide warfighters with a low-cost, rapid solution for hypersonic testing, missile defense, and space launch. Longshot will provide the Air Force with a hypersonic solution that is 10 times cheaper and offer 10 times more frequent testing than alternatives. This projectÂ’s research is a critical step to building a system that can accelerate hundreds of kilograms to high hypersonic speeds for applications in hypersonic test, missile defense, and space launch.
