Scout Space, Dawn Aerospace complete suborbital spaceplane surveillance test flight

Dawn Aerospace and Scout Space teams, with Scout’s Morning Sparrow payload on board Aurora. Source (All Images) | Dawn Aerospace

As of Aug. 6, Dawn Aerospace (ChristChurch, New Zealand) has completed its first demonstration flight carrying a space domain awareness (SDA) payload with Scout Space (Reston, Va., U.S.), a space technology firm specializing in in-space observation services, marking the first step toward SDA capability using a suborbital spaceplane at supersonic speeds. The flight tested integration of Scout’s Morning Sparrow sensor suite aboard the composites-intensive Aurora platform, flying from a conventional runway at Tāwhaki National Aerospace Centre in New Zealand.

This flight also marks Scout as the first commercial operator to fly on Dawn Aerospace’s rocket-powered, high-altitude aircraft under a strategic partnership in which Scout will develop a tactically responsive very-low Earth orbit (VLEO) space domain awareness capability. The combination of supersonic flight testing and runway-based operations gives Scout an accelerated path to proving new SDA technologies that are easier, more repeatable and more affordable.

Morning Sparrow flew to a maximum altitude of 67,000 feet, and a maximum speed of Mach 1.03. In follow-on flights, Morning Sparrow’s sensor suite will be used to gather data and demonstrate the sensor’s capability to track and image VLEO objects from below — offering a responsive platform for urgent, time-sensitive intelligence-gathering and a cost-efficient alternative to conventional satellite-based SDA.

Aurora took off from Tāwhaki National Aerospace Centre on July 17, 2025.

“Rapidly deployable, high-performance, high-altitude platforms are notoriously few and far between,” says Philip Hover-Smoot, CEO of Scout Space. “Accelerating flexible access to VLEO represents a leap forward in how we think about taskable surveillance and space security in rapidly evolving low-orbit environments, and unlocks new options for operators looking for otherwise limited intelligence products across the increasingly important VLEO regime.”

The sensor, housed in the Aurora’s payload bay, was accessible up to moments before flight showcasing the ease of integration, rapid access and easy hardware adjustments for space-class optics into aircraft-grade environments. Shortly after Aurora landing back on the runway, the crew had already begun transferring flight data.