Polaris will construct a two-stage, horizontal take-off and totally reusable hypersonic analysis car, that includes a linear aerospike rocket engine.
German firm Polaris Spaceplanes introduced on Jan. 27, 2026, that it has obtained a contract from the Federal Workplace of Bundeswehr Gear, Info Expertise, and In-Service Help (BAAINBw) to construct and flight-test a reusable hypersonic car. The corporate says the car needs to be flight prepared by the tip of 2027.
The car has been additional described as a two-stage, horizontal take-off and totally reusable hypersonic analysis car, with the dimensions and most takeoff weight of a fighter jet. The agency’s assertion on its LinkedIn web page mentioned that the undertaking has each civilian and protection purposes, serving as an experimental testbed and a small satellite tv for pc launch platform.
Referred to as the Hypersonic Take a look at and Experimentation Car (HYTEV), the undertaking follows almost two years of preparatory work, says the corporate, following BAAINBw contracts in April 2023 and February 2025 to develop a linear aerospike rocket engine and design the HYTEV, respectively. The corporate has designated the aerospike engine as AS-1, and has been testing small-scale demonstrators MIRA II and MIRA III for greater than a 12 months now, recording a couple of milestones up to now.
The MIRA II skilled a serious success on Oct. 29, 2024, when it fired the AS-1 mid-air, making it the primary ever in-flight ignition of a linear aerospike rocket engine, the corporate mentioned. Polaris revealed in November 2025, together with intensive footage, that this system had accomplished 250 flights in seven demonstrators.
The ultimate fighter-sized plane can be powered by two turbofans and the AS-1 aerospike engine, with a rocket-powered higher stage.
Plane and milestones up to now
Polaris mentioned in its LinkedIn put up: “We’re extraordinarily happy to announce that POLARIS has obtained a BAAINBw contract for manufacturing and working a two-stage, horizontal take-off and totally reusable hypersonic analysis car.”
The November 2025 footage included a small clip of the airframe of a bigger plane being below development, which can have naturally integrated classes from the small-scale demonstrators. This might most likely be the supersonic NOVA demonstrator, primarily based on the event roadmap POLARIS has beforehand revealed.
Hartpunkt, quoting unidentified firm officers, put the anticipated house payload weight at 1,000 kg, a focused hypersonic velocity exceeding Mach 5, and mentioned a doable function may very well be “reconnaissance missions exterior the environment.” One other clip within the November 2025 video confirmed one of many sub-scale MIRA plane being refueled by the opposite, however it isn’t recognized in the event that they have been managed manually or have been working autonomously.
Germany is making one in all its greatest pushes into superior aerospace in not too long ago. Authorities officers have confirmed a big funding in spaceplane analysis, signaling that the nation plans to take a way more severe function in the way forward for reusable flight.
The… pic.twitter.com/oRdfKHinf4
— Dylan Small (@_DylanSmall_) November 25, 2025
The MIRA plane are largely a flying-wing kind, with two giant winglets, and 4 giant protruding air inlets above the wing’s forefront. The aerospike engine sits within the centerline, working throughout the plane’s backbone, between the 4 exhausts of the 2 turbofan engines.
Polaris’s LinkedIn put up additional mentioned: “The primary function of the two-stage system is to function hypersonic testbed and experimental platform for defense-related in addition to scientific/institutional analysis. In a secondary perform, the car can be utilized as a spaceplane for launching small-satellites when utilizing an expendable upper-stage […] We’re extremely proud in regards to the steady belief of the Bundeswehr in our competences. So far as we all know, a contract for a comparable system was by no means awarded earlier than to an entity in Europe, possibly even worldwide.”
First in-flight Aerospike rocket engine ignition
European Spaceflight, in a Nov. 12, 2024, report in regards to the AS-1’s first in-flight ignition take a look at with its in-house 1 kN LOX (Liquid Oxygen)/kerosene gas on the MIRA II, mentioned that its “twin,” the MIRA III, has been developed for higher redundancy and testing flexibility, and can lay the inspiration for the supersonic NOVA demonstrator. It will inform the ultimate AURORA reusable hypersonic spaceplane, which the newest BAAINBw contract covers, to ship payloads into Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
In its LinkedIn put up, POLARIS Spaceplanes additionally mentioned that the MIRA II turned on Oct. 29, 2024, the primary car to fireplace an aerospike engine mid-flight. It took off from the Peenemünde Airport, igniting the aerospike over the Baltic Sea, “roughly 3 km away from the bottom station.”
For security causes given this was the aerospike engine’s first flight, POLARIS engineers diminished the propellant loading equal to solely 229 kg, restricted the burn time to three seconds and operated below diminished chamber strain.
The AS-1 accelerated the MIRA II to 4 meters/second squared, producing 900 N of thrust, whereas concurrently giving it altitude. After the totally profitable first aerospike flight, MIRA II returned to the airport and landed safely.
The flight took three-and-a-half minutes in complete, masking a distance of greater than 10 km. Future flight exams will “lengthen engine operation vary and car efficiency envelope,” POLARIS added.
“Whereas gearing up for the subsequent aerospike flights with MIRA II and its twin sister MIRA III, we’re already getting ready the event of the supersonic prototype NOVA, which can have a size of 7-8 meters,” mentioned the corporate.
Aerospike rocket engine
In comparison with a standard rocket engine with a bell-shaped exhaust, an aerospike inverts into an inward-facing curve, with the exhaust flowing over the outside facet uncovered to the encircling environment.
Bell-shaped nozzles are optimized for a selected enlargement ratio which corresponds to a specific altitude, and grow to be progressively much less environment friendly away from that time. This is among the causes multi-stage rockets are used, as they permit to make use of higher levels with bigger expansion-ratio nozzles optimized for the progressively increased altitudes, as much as the near-vacuum operation.
In an aerospike design, the exhaust being straight uncovered to the surface atmospheric strain, provides higher effectivity. Nonetheless, technical hurdles like extra complicated designs, heavier engines, and elevated cooling necessities, in comparison with bell-shaped nozzles, have marred earlier efforts.
Many years in the past, on the time of the primary aerospike efforts, obtainable supplies and cooling methods made it troublesome to handle the thermal masses and structural complexity of aerospike engines, limiting the outcomes that may very well be achieved. Among the many first to work on aerospike was Rocketdyne, which invented the design within the Fifties.
Within the Nineties, NASA and Lockheed Martin pursued the X-33/VentureStar program as a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) car with a linear aerospike rocket. Whereas this system led to the creation of {a partially} constructed prototype, it was cancelled in 2001 after main technical failures and escalating value and schedule overruns.
