Mk-II Aurora at the Tāwhaki National Aerospace Centre, New Zealand. Source | Dawn Aerospace

In April 2025, Dawn Aerospace (ChristChurch, New Zealand) announced plans to fly research payloads from three U.S. institutions — Arizona State University (Tempe), California Polytechnic State University (San Luis Obispo) and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (Laurel, Md.) — on its rocket-powered composite aircraft, the Mk-II Aurora.

The flights, scheduled for April and June 2025, will showcase the Mk-II Aurora’s capabilities as a reusable, high-cadence suborbital vehicle. Dawn Aerospace will also fly payloads for Scout Space (Reston, Va.), a U.S.-based commercial customer, during the same campaign.

These missions will take place from the Tāwhaki National Aerospace Centre at Kaitorete, just outside Christchurch, as Dawn’s first commercial flights since runway facilities were established in 2024.

The three pathfinder flights will support groundbreaking research in their respective fields:

• Arizona State University, a space science and engineering university, will fly a modified version of its Themis visual imaging system (LEO-TIMS).
• Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, an R&D institution that has designed and built spacecraft and specialized instruments that have visited the Sun and every planet in the solar system, will fly a payload interface system known as Janus-Lite that measures the Aurora’s payload bay environment, collecting data on magnetic field, acceleration, pressure and thermal conditions.

• California Polytechnic State University, well-known for its CubeSat program and aerospace engineering, will test a student-developed flight path reconstruction data acquisition system to collect GPS and air data in calibration with the Mk-II’s systems.

“The Mk-II Aurora presents a rapidly reusable space capability, with the power to unlock new economic, environmental and scientific value,” explains Stefan Powell, CEO, Dawn Aerospace. “This initiative plants the seed that will grow into ongoing international collaboration and expansion for many years to come.”

The vehicle used for the pathfinder flights is the “Mk-IIA,” which in November 2024, was reported to be the first civil aircraft to break the sound barrier since the Concorde, as well as breaking climb rate records and reaching a 25-kilometer altitude.

The Mk-IIB, according to Dawn Aerospace, will be “the highest and fastest flying vehicle ever to take off from a runway,” reaching Mach 3.5 and 100-kilometer altitudes. The vehicle is made for high performance, same-day reusability and easily accessible payload bay designed for environmental instruments.

The three flights are supported by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) on behalf of the New Zealand Government.