Exclusive: Hermeus unveils Ramjet-X, a "high-Mach" aircraft

Hermeus is building what it's calling Ramjet-X — a super-fast aircraft that blurs the line between large drone, air-defense target and test bed for propulsion and materials science.

Why it matters: It's another big bet on unmanned speed from the company, which this year was valued at $1 billion post-money and moved its headquarters from Georgia to California.

Driving the news: Hermeus unveiled Ramjet-X this morning, offering the defense world "high-Mach flight test as a service" and highlighting the national-security insights that come with it.

"I can monetize this as a test asset — B2B, B2G. But it's also an in-house test asset that gets me ramjet flight data and long-duration thermal management flight data now," chief executive Zach Shore told Axios.
"This can seriously drop testing costs, and also advance our propulsion work."

Zoom in: Ramjet-X, about 22 feet long and 7 feet across, is designed to launch midair from underneath Quarterhorse, the F-16-sized unmanned aircraft that Hermeus is known for.

First flight of Ramjet-X is expected less than a year from now. Eventually, one Quarterhorse will be able to carry two Ramjet-Xs slung underwing, according to Shore.
"The first-stage booster is the airplane," he said.
"When the plane gets up to Mach 3, I can release a ramjet-only system that's going to accelerate, climb, get up to about 100,000-ish feet, Mach 4-ish speed, and it's going to cruise for tens of minutes."

The intrigue: There are echoes of the Cold War-era D-21, M-21 and piggybacking configuration here.

"There is a very clear historical precedent that's really exciting," Shore said.
"Things that we thought were impossible, that we did in the '60s with slide rules — we can do them again."

What we're watching: Which companies sign up, and where this endeavor intersects with Pentagon programming, like the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonics Test Bed.

The bottom line: "It's very early, but people are definitely intrigued," Shore said. "Tomorrow is now today."

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