Ursa Major Marks Reusable Hypersonic Propulsion Milestone with Ten Consecutive Hadley Flights

Ursa Major has completed ten consecutive successful flights of its Hadley liquid rocket engine, a milestone that underscores the company’s progress in reusable hypersonic propulsion. The flights, conducted with Stratolaunch, included multiple missions at sustained hypersonic speeds and demonstrated the engine’s ability to operate reliably across repeated cycles with minimal refurbishment.

The achievement places Ursa Major among a small group of U.S. propulsion companies that have demonstrated reusable liquid engines in hypersonic flight. Reusability is a critical requirement for accelerating hypersonic testing, where rapid turnaround and cost efficiency directly influence the pace of materials development, aerodynamic research and defensive system evaluation.

Hadley’s design incorporates extensive additive manufacturing, enabling high part consolidation and rapid iteration. This approach allows Ursa Major to shorten development cycles and scale production more efficiently than traditional manufacturing methods. The company has emphasized that additive manufacturing also supports more consistent performance across engine builds.

Several of the recent flights used previously flown engines, validating the company’s refurbishment processes and demonstrating durability under extreme thermal and mechanical loads. This capability is particularly relevant for defense customers seeking to increase flight cadence without incurring the cost of single‑use propulsion systems.

Ursa Major’s progress comes as the United States continues to invest in hypersonic test infrastructure and industrial base capacity. The company’s propulsion technology provides a domestically produced option for programs that require reliable, repeatable access to hypersonic flight regimes.

With the ten‑flight milestone complete, Ursa Major plans to expand testing and increase production throughput, positioning Hadley as a workhorse engine for hypersonic research and responsive launch applications.