POLARIS Spaceplanes has received a contract from the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology, and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) to design a hypersonic research vehicle. BAAINBw is the German defence procurement agency responsible for equipping the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces.
Founded in 2019, POLARIS Spaceplanes is developing AURORA, a multipurpose spaceplane and hypersonic transport system. Before beginning work directly on AURORA, the company has focused on developing and testing progressively larger demonstrators, the latest being a pair of identical five-metre-long vehicles, MIRA II and MIRA III.
In a 27 February update, POLARIS revealed that it had received a BAAINBw contract to design a fully reusable hypersonic research vehicle. The contract describes the vehicle as a hypersonic testbed and experimental platform for defence-related applications, as well as scientific and institutional research. A secondary role of the vehicle will be to serve as a small satellite launch system when equipped with an expendable upper stage.
While not directly named in the update, this contract will likely kick off the development of AURORA. The contract’s initial scope is limited to the design of the vehicle. However, POLARIS revealed that the contract also includes provisions for follow-on initiatives to manufacture and flight-test the full-size vehicle.
This isn’t the first BAAINBw development contract POLARIS has been awarded. In April 2023, the company received a contract to develop a linear aerospike rocket engine for a spaceplane demonstrator. Eight months later, the company successfully test-fired its 1 kN AS-1 linear aerospike engine. A year later, the company completed an in-flight ignition of the engine, which was equipped on the company’s MIRA II demonstrator. Additional testing of the AS-1 engine aboard the MIRA II and MIRA III demonstrators is expected to occur this year.
