Masten Making Progress on Broadsword, New Lander

On September 30, 2016, Masten Space Systems successfully concluded the 13-month design, build, and test period for the first development unit of the Broadsword 25 rocket engine, funded as a technology demonstration under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program. This first phase of the engine development effort included commissioning Masten’s largest mobile engine test stand and firing of the company’s highest-thrust rocket engine to date.

…

The goal of this initial hot-fire test campaign comprised ignition and startup sequence development. The effort concluded with demonstrating six successful engine starts. Masten has subsequently begun the design and build of a second development unit, incorporating lessons learned during manufacturing and testing, and plans to proceed with main-stage hot-fire testing in the next phase.

Masten aims to continue Broadsword development over the course of 2017 and 2018 in collaboration with NASA under the Tipping Point program, and anticipates moving into flight qualification after the conclusion of that effort.

In the lander department, they recently lost Xaero-B during a flight, but have something in the works at Marshall Space Flight Center—interesting choice of location—which sounds quite intriguing:

We have what will be our largest lander design to date currently under construction at MSFC. We are encouraged about what we are doing next.