test flight

The Air Force said Anduril and General Atomics were ahead of the program’s schedule, which required the companies to conduct a test flight of their aircraft by the end of the year.

“This problem hasn’t been as urgent until right now, when we are seeing the end of reliable GPS,” said Russell Anderson, a principal scientist at Q-CTRL, the Australian startup that ran the test flight.

The test flight of a plane called XB-1, developed by the company Boom Supersonic, became the first civilian jet to break the sound barrier since the Concorde.

Elon Musk wants to reach Mars with his Starship rocket, which recently completed a successful test flight, but here on Earth he faces terrestrial challenges.

Following a successful test flight for Starship, SpaceX is done with launches for the year and will be working to ready the next generation of its technology — in pursuit of lofty ambitions like an eventual colonization of Mars.