For more information, contact:
Exquadrum
Kevin E. Mahaffy
Chief Executive Officer
760-530-7921
kevin.mahaffy@exquadrum.com
Exquadrum Achieves Successful Full-scale Hypersonic Sounding Rocket Static Test
Exquadrum’s test prepares TopFuel rocket propulsion for hypersonic flight test in 2025
VICTORVILLE, California, 16 August 2024 – Exquadrum, Inc. of Victorville, California, successfully completed a hot-fire test of an innovative, 21-inch, TopFuel rocket propulsion stage being developed to accomplish hypersonic sounding rocket missions under contract to the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). Exquadrum conducted the test of the 17.5-foot-long rocket stage at the company’s 33-acre FORGE Development and Rocket Test Facility at the Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, California. This test is the culmination of Phase 2 of the company’s $1.5M prime contract, which was awarded to Exquadrum in February of 2022.
In 2022, the inaugural Principal Director for Hypersonics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Michael E. White, gave the defense testing community the challenge to increase the hypersonic test cadence to one flight per week. Exquadrum is stepping up to this challenge using the company’s highly innovative TopFuel technology in which a solid rocket motor is augmented and controlled by the injection of a liquid monopropellant. This approach gives the rocket propulsion system an extreme amount of throttle ability, so that a missile can fly a hypersonic sounding rocket mission at a precise Mach number (velocity). TopFuel also significantly decreases cost with its liquid monopropellant costing an order of magnitude less that solid rocket propellant.
“Exquadrum is grateful to the Missile Defense Agency for providing us the opportunity to take a highly innovative propulsion technology and apply it to creating a hypersonic sounding rocket that will help MDA and the Department of Defense achieve their high priority goal of developing and deploying hypersonic systems,” said Kevin E. Mahaffy, Chief Executive Officer of Exquadrum. “This technology is now ready to transition to flight testing in early 2025.”
