Rocket Lab has successfully completed another suborbital hypersonic-test flight for the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), marking a major milestone for the company’s HASTE launch vehicle and its expanding role in national security missions. The launch took place on 18 November from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 2 at Wallops Island, Virginia.
HASTE — a suborbital variant of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket — is designed to provide rapid, cost-effective and repeatable flight testing for emerging hypersonic and missile-defense technologies. The latest mission deployed a primary government payload developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, along with multiple secondary payloads from federal and industry partners. These tests focused on advancing technologies used in tracking, intercepting and characterising high-speed threats.
The mission was contracted through DIU’s Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing Capabilities (HyCAT) program, which aims to accelerate evaluation of hypersonic systems by tapping into commercial launch providers. Rocket Lab delivered the mission within 14 months of contract signing — a timeline DIU says shows the value of commercial speed and agile development for defence customers.
The company’s HASTE launch vehicle uses many of the same carbon-composite structures and 3D-printed engines as the Electron orbital launcher, but features a modified Kick Stage and increased payload capacity tailored for hypersonic and suborbital research. It can deploy test articles at speeds over 7.5 kilometres per second, enabling experiments in air-breathing propulsion, hypersonic glide, ballistic flight, and atmospheric re-entry.
This was the sixth HASTE mission since its debut in 2023, reinforcing Rocket Lab’s growing presence in defence-focused test operations. Across HASTE and Electron combined, the company has now deployed more than 200 payloads for government and commercial customers.
Rocket Lab’s Vice President of Global Launch Services, Brian Rogers, said the mission highlights HASTE’s role in advancing U.S. hypersonic technology readiness. DIU’s Emerging Technology Portfolio Director, Lt Col Nicholas Estep, added that leveraging commercial launch providers is critical to reducing development timelines and improving affordability for hypersonics programs.
The mission underscores the increasing reliance on commercial launch systems to support defence testing and risk-reduction missions as the United States pursues next-generation missile-defence capabilities.
