FAST Aerospace has secured a €500,000 “Proof of Concept investment” to begin the development of a prototype of the ramjet engine that will power its carrier aircraft.
Officially incorporated in March 2024, FAST is developing an air-launched rocket system called HyperDart. The system is designed to be capable of delivering 250-kilogram payloads to low Earth orbit.
The HyperDart launch system includes a 16-metre-long remotely piloted aircraft that will carry an expendable rocket to an altitude of 25 kilometres. The rocket’s methalox engines will then be fired, carrying its payload into space. The carrier aircraft can then be returned to base to be refueled and refitted with a new expendable rocket. The company refers to the system as partially reusable.
FAST announced on 12 July that it had secured a €500,000 “Proof of Concept investment” from Galaxia, an aerospace technology transfer hub created by CDP Venture Capital. According to the company, the funding will be used to develop a prototype of the ramjet engine that will power its carrier aircraft to speeds of around Mach 5.
“Thanks to this investment, we are starting the design and build of a scaled-down version of the full-size engine that we will use,” explained FAST cofounder and CEO Lorenzo Beggio. “This type of propulsor requires specific and extreme conditions to be ignited, obtainable only through a dedicated test bench that we are already designing.”
The company hopes to ignite the prototype ramjet engine for the first time by the end of 2025. It plans to develop and fly two subscale prototypes called MiniDart and SuperDart before attempting an initial test of HyperDart in 2029.
