Starfighters Space announced on November 10 that it has joined a team led by Exos Aerospace Systems & Technologies to pursue work through the US Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Complex Velocity Alliance. The pairing combines a reusable rocket developer with the world’s only commercial fleet of flight-ready Mach 2+ F-104 Starfighter jets.
What the Velocity Alliance is
AEDC in Tennessee runs much of the Pentagon’s ground testing: wind tunnels, engine test cells and the facilities hypersonic programs depend on. Much of it is old. The Velocity Alliance is an acquisition vehicle set up by AEDC and the Air Force Test Center to speed up sustainment, restoration and modernisation of that test infrastructure, including for hypersonics. The Air Force describes it as a pre-qualified, competitive pool of industry partners for a multibillion-dollar portfolio of projects.
Exos submitted a white paper under the Alliance’s second onboarding solicitation, FA9101-26-9-Velocity_Alliance, naming Starfighters as its external teaming partner. The Air Force Test Center rated the white paper technically acceptable, and the team is now completing the remaining onboarding requirements.
A wind tunnel in the sky
Ground tunnels can’t reproduce everything. Starfighters is developing what it calls a Wind Tunnel in the Sky: a modular, reusable underwing platform that carries sensors, test articles and materials through sustained Mach 2+ flight. Exos CEO John Quinn said adding Starfighters gives his team a high-speed airborne test capability that complements AEDC’s ground facilities. Hypersonic programs need far more test time than the country’s limited facilities can supply, which is why commercial flight-test capacity keeps getting attention.
Read the fine print
This is a teaming announcement, not a contract. Starfighters itself says there’s no assurance Exos will complete onboarding, that the team will win any project or that Starfighters will earn revenue from the Alliance. Onboarding only makes the team eligible to compete for task orders.
Starfighters is a small company. It trades on NYSE American with a market value under $50 million and no meaningful revenue, and its shares have fallen sharply from their 52-week high. For a business like that, a place on a qualified team for a large Air Force vehicle is worth something. Whether it’s worth money depends on orders that haven’t been placed yet.