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Hermeus scales DIU contract to $219M to demonstrate high-mach flight for Department of War. May 28, 2026, 08:30 ET LOS ANGELES, May 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Hermeus, a venture-backed defense aviation company, has secured a $159 million contract modification with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). This increases the total contract ceiling to $219 million to demonstrate high-Mach flight and high-speed payload release. The contract is one of the largest ever awarded by the DIU. Building on earlier technical milestones, Hermeus is partnering with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy to execute this expanded scope. The program aims to prove that uncrewed aircraft can reliably reach high-Mach speeds and release payloads in flight, establishing the technical foundation for future military use cases. "This program is about moving high-Mach capability out of the lab and into an operationally relevant environment," said AJ Piplica, CEO and Co-Founder of Hermeus. "By delivering flight-ready aircraft and demonstrating payload release at speed, we will prove this technology can create a decisive military advantage on a timeline that matters. Our focus is on providing the Air Force and Navy with the validated data they need to transition these platforms into the future force." Under the new agreement, Hermeus will conduct a series of intensive flight tests in 2026 and 2027. These tests will prove the aircraft can maintain high speeds and expand its performance limits while successfully carrying and releasing payloads at high velocity. All flight data throughout the campaign will directly inform service experimentation and future acquisition decisions. "As you look towards the future, and the military problems we're facing, the issues are generally around time and distance, and how do you get to these far-off places at a timeframe that matters," said DIU Military Deputy Major General Joe "Solo" Kunkel. "I care about the warfighting capability, providing advantage to our partners and us in the fight, and making sure that we can walk into every fight with swagger. If we can mass produce this, then it becomes a game-changing warfighting capability, where we use it as a weapon instead of a test platform, and I think we found a significant number of use cases where it can be used as a weapon." By partnering directly with USAF and USN stakeholders, Hermeus is aligning flight tests with future mission needs and shortening the path from testing to deployment. The results will provide the services with the performance data and risk reduction necessary to see how high-Mach aircraft fit into the future fleet. About Hermeus Hermeus is a venture-backed defense aviation company reclaiming the lost art of rapid iterative prototyping to build the fastest aircraft in the world today. By prioritizing relentless hardware iteration, we deliver high-speed systems at the pace of the modern battlefield. We work with the Department of War to provide the high-speed capabilities our nation and its allies need to maintain a durable, asymmetric advantage. Media Contact Farshad Shadloo, VP, Marketing & Communications 770-687-7033 [email protected] SOURCE Hermeus

Hermeus logs first supersonic flight with experimental Quarterhorse jet. The uncrewed Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 reached a top speed of Mach 1.21. US aviation start-up Hermeus has logged its first-ever supersonic flight with one of the company's experimental Quarterhorse aircraft. Flying from Spaceport America in New Mexico, the Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 vehicle reached a top speed of Mach 1.21 over the US Army's White Sands Missile Range, Hermeus announced on 26 May. The sortie was only the third flight for the Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 and comes less than three months after the uncrewed jet's first test flight in early March. Both of the first and second Mk 2.1 flights were subsonic. "This flight demonstrates a pace of execution that is extremely rare in modern aviation," says Hermeus co-founder and cheif executive AJ Piplica. "Our country's ability to deliver new asymmetric military capability at scale depends on teams that can solve hard technical challenges quickly." In April, the Federal Aviation Administration approved Heremus to conduct up to seven supersonic flights before the end of 2026, signalling that more such events are likely to follow. Piplica has repeatedly said that rapid iteration within the aircraft design and fabrication process is a key element of Hermeus' business strategy. The company's long-term goal is the development of a reusable aircraft capable of breaking the M5 (3,307kt) hypersonic barrier. Hermeus says its current engineering and testing timeline puts the company on a path to deliver an operational hypersonic vehicle before 2030. That milestone is expected to be achieved with the forthcoming Quarterhorse Mk 3. Within the Mk 2 series, Hermeus plans to build three variants that will each push further toward the M5 threshold. The Mk 2.1 has now broken the supersonic barrier, while the Mk 2.2 and Mk 2.3 successors will push into higher Mach speeds. The Mk 2.2 is already being fabricated, according to Hermeus, with the Mk 2.3 "soon to follow". Notably, the Quarterhorse family of vehicles is designed to take off and land under their own power, unlike most of the other experimental hypersonic vehicles and munitions currently in development. Advanced propulsion technologies are central to the company's hypersonic goals. While the Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 is powered by a standard Pratt & Whitney F100 turbofan fighter engine, successive aircraft designs will use cutting-edge enhancements like pre-cooling. Hermeus is currently developing a turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) propulsion system called Chimera that will combine the F100 with an integrated ramjet engine to allow for a single aircraft to transition through subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic flight. This will be achieved in part via a proprietary pre-cooling system that will chill engine intake air before compression and combustion, allowing a standard turbofan engine to operate at higher speeds, with greater efficiency and reduced performance degradation. In theory, that will allow Quarterhorse aircraft to reach airspeeds of around M3.5 - roughly the point at which current high-speed ramjet designs can achieve compression significant enough to produce ignition and generate thrust. The ramjet engine would then take over, accelerating the vehicle to M5 and beyond. Rival hypersonic developer Stratolaunch has already achieved repeated high-Mach flights with its reusable Talon-A design. That vehicle uses a captive-carry approach, wherein the rocket-powered Talon-A is ferried aloft by a large, conventionally powered aircraft. The Talon-A is then airdropped from its mothership and accelerates to M5 under its own power. Stratolaunch has logged at least three publicly disclosed hypersonic flights with the Talon-A system, along with several subsonic flights. The company announced the completion of its latest hypersonic sortie earlier this month. Choose your subscription. Considering a corporate subscription? Contact us to find out more.

Hermeus breaks sound barrier with uncrewed Quarterhorse. Mk 2.1 goes supersonic less than three months after first flight May 26, 2026 Hermeus has pushed its Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 past the sound barrier, reaching Mach 1.21 during its third test flight at Spaceport America in New Mexico. The Atlanta-based company announced the milestone on Monday, describing it as the first supersonic flight by a privately developed uncrewed aircraft. Conducted over New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range airspace, the flight took place less than three months after Mk 2.1's first flight in early March and 364 days after the inaugural flight of the original Mk 1. "This flight demonstrates a pace of execution that is extremely rare in modern aviation," said AJ Piplica, co-founder and outgoing CEO of Hermeus. "Our country's ability to deliver new asymmetric military capability at scale depends on teams that can solve hard technical challenges quickly. That's exactly what we're proving with each test flight we conduct and each new aircraft we build at Hermeus." (Hermeus announced on May 11 that company president Zach Shore will succeed Piplica as CEO on June 1, with Piplica moving to executive chairman.) The delta-winged, F-16-scale Mk 2.1 flies on a modified afterburning Pratt & Whitney F100 engine. Hermeus is already building the Mk 2.2, which is intended to fly on the company's Chimera II turbine-based combined cycle propulsion system, with the Mk 2.3 "soon to follow," the company said. Hermeus is developing Quarterhorse in collaboration with the Department of Defense as a precursor to its Darkhorse hypersonic military aircraft and, ultimately, the 20-passenger Halcyon civil hypersonic jet. While supersonic flight exceeds Mach 1, hypersonic flight - Hermeus' ultimate goal - begins at Mach 5, enabling intercontinental travel in a fraction of current flight times. The milestone comes as supersonic development activity intensifies across the industry. Boom Supersonic's crewed XB-1 demonstrator broke the sound barrier at Mach 1.122 in January 2025, paving the way for the 64- to-80-passenger Overture airliner it claims could enter commercial service around 2029. Hermeus' Mach 1.21 top speed surpasses XB-1's mark. Meanwhile, NASA's X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft, built by Lockheed Martin, has completed 16 test flights and is targeting its first supersonic attempt as early as next month.