Electron version
Electron HASTE
The suborbital version of Electron, announced in April 2023 as HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron). It carries up to 700 kg on a suborbital trajectory and serves as a test bed for hypersonic vehicles. It first flew on 18 June 2023 and has flown nine times, all from Wallops.
- June 18, 2023
- First launch
- No
- Reusable
History
A launcher turned test bed
The United States needed to fly hypersonic prototypes often and cheaply, and Electron offered a ready-made basis: same diameter, same production line, without the obligation to reach orbital velocity. Giving up orbit lets the vehicle carry far more — up to 700 kg — and release the experiment at whatever speed and altitude the test calls for.
The MACH-TB programme
The first flight, "Scout's Arrow", lifted off on 18 June 2023 from Launch Complex 2 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport with Dynetics' DYNAMO-A payload, part of the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed programme. Leidos later contracted a run of four missions and others flew for confidential customers; payloads are almost always listed as classified.
Nine flights
Between 2023 and 2026 HASTE flew nine times, all successfully and all from Wallops. In November 2025 "Prometheus Run" carried a government primary payload developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory together with several secondary experiments from federal and industry partners, testing missile-defence technologies. In February 2026 "That's Not A Knife" deployed Hypersonix's DART AE, a scramjet vehicle capable of Mach 7, and demonstrated direct injection with the rocket still climbing through the atmosphere.
A blurred boundary
The most recent flight on record, "Curveball" on 11 June 2026, reached roughly 200 km altitude: the first HASTE mission that, for all its suborbital brief, made it to orbit.