GE Aerospace wins Defense Innovation Unit contract to integrate liquid-fueled hypersonic test bed and begin qualification testing

GE Aerospace received a Defense Innovation Unit contract to advance a liquid-fueled hypersonic flight-test platform under the Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing program. The 2026 phase combines a booster and cruiser into an all-up-round configuration and moves the design toward qualification and component-level testing after concept work in 2023, subsystem development in 2024, and a preliminary design review in 2025. The effort is intended to provide more frequent, affordable flight opportunities for hypersonic technologies, but DIU and GE did not disclose the contract value or a date for a first integrated flight.