Hypersonix and partners win $2.95M CRC-P grant for reusable hypersonic UAV

Aerospace engineering business Hypersonix Launch Systems together with the University of Southern Queensland, LSM Advanced Composites and New South Wales-based Romar Engineering, have been awarded a $2.95 million Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) grant from the Federal Government.

The project, titled ‘DART CMP Airframe – a reusable hypersonic platform’, is a hypersonic  Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that can travel at up to Mach 12. It is powered by the company’s SPARTAN hydrogen fuelled scramjet engine.

Scramjets take oxygen from the atmosphere which reduces their weight by 60% compared to rockets. The development of new high temperature composite materials in this project will enable DART CMP to be reusable. With zero CO₂ emissions thanks to the green hydrogen fuel, Hypersonix is leading a new era of ‘Green access to space’.

The project will deliver a new sovereign manufacturing capability for high temperature oxide-oxide ceramic matrix composites. The deliverables include a complete UAV airframe including composite aeroshell and aerodynamic control surfaces, flight avionics, and hydrogen fuel system.

Hypersonix Managing Director David Waterhouse said DART CMP is the composite version of the DART AE that is due for launch in 2023.

“AE stands for Additive Engineering and is the fully 3D printed version out of high temperature alloys that are already available in Australia,” Mr Waterhouse said. “The type of high temperature composites we require for DART CMP are currently not available here, therefore there is an urgent need to develop these materials in Australia.

“We are thankful that the government acknowledged this gap and responded with accepting our application. We can’t wait to have these materials ready in mid 2025.”

Hypersonix CTO Michael Smart added, “And we are proud to support three PhD students with this project as well, we need more experts in this developing industry.”

The University of Southern Queensland’s Institute for Advanced Engineering and Space Sciences is focussing the institution’s support by applying its research expertise in the field of hypersonics and future materials to help realise an innovative mission, Executive Director Professor Peter Schubel Professor Schubel said.

“Our role in the project will be to develop and test the prototype ultra-high temperature composite material needed,” he said. “Our expertise in liquid moulding technologies, automated fibre placement, pultrusion and filament winding capabilities with exotic materials allows us to develop revolutionary structures.

Additive Manufacturing/3D Printing will be used where possible and will be covered by Romar Engineering with Steve Milanoski, formerly of SpaceX, leading the steadily growing additive manufacturing team.

The DART CMP UAV will undergo hardware in the loop bench testing as part of flight readiness.

Hypersonix won an Accelerating Commercialisation grant from DISER which it completed by the 31 March deadline. The This is not the first Federal government grant awarded to Hypersonix. Similarly, Romar Engineering was awarded a $5.85 million Modern Manufacturing Initiative (MMI) Space grant in 2021 for the development of its fluid and motion control business.

LSM Advanced Composites will focus on the development of high temperature ceramic composite components.