Starfighters Space Advances "Wind Tunnel in the Sky" Mach 2+ Flight-Testing Platform

Reusable airborne platform designed to provide sustained real-atmosphere testing for advanced space, defense and hypersonic-development technologies

Issued on behalf of Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE American: FJET)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., July 28, 2026 — Equity Insider News Commentary - Access to specialized test infrastructure has become one of the quieter bottlenecksa in advanced aerospace development. Ground wind tunnels remain essential, but their run times are measured in seconds and their schedules in weeks. Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE American: FJET), the space company operating the world's only commercial fleet of flight-ready Mach 2+ F-104 supersonic aircraft, has announced the next phase in development of "Wind Tunnel in the Sky," a reusable airborne platform designed to help commercial, government, defense, and research customers evaluate advanced technologies during sustained Mach 2+ flight in real-world atmospheric conditions.

The Company is designing a unique underwing platform that is modular, reusable, and able to host a variety of sensors, test articles, and other payloads for long-duration exposure to both high-speed and low-gravity conditions. This underwing platform is expected to support aerodynamic test articles, avionics, sensors, communications systems, electronic equipment, advanced materials, and other technologies for hypersonic programs and microgravity research.

Leveraging the Company's operational F-104 fleet, a typical 45-minute mission can include up to a 10-minute Mach 2+ test window. That provides significantly longer exposure than traditional wind tunnel test runs, which typically can last only seconds at a time, and compresses what could otherwise take days of facility scheduling into a single flight.

"As demand for hypersonic and advanced aerospace systems continues to grow, access to specialized test infrastructure remains limited, increasing demand for complementary commercial flight-test capabilities," said Tim Franta, CEO of Starfighters Space. "While ground wind tunnels remain essential for aerospace research and development, airborne testing can expose hardware to combinations of weather variation, vibration, acceleration, dynamic pressure, temperature and operational conditions that cannot always be fully reproduced in a fixed facility."

Wind Tunnel in the Sky builds on Starfighters Space's previous subsonic and supersonic flight-test experience, including testing conducted in support of its STARLAUNCH 1 demonstrator. As development progresses, the reusable platform is expected to expand commercial access to the Company's F-104 fleet for testing for next-generation aerospace, defense and space technologies.

The Broader Test-and-Propulsion Backdrop

The demand signal Starfighters Space is pointing at is visible across the larger aerospace and defense complex. Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT) announced a collaboration with Venus Aerospace in July 2026 to advance next-generation propulsion for long-range precision fires, and has raised its full-year 2026 sales and earnings guidance. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) reported second-quarter 2026 results with a record backlog and raised 2026 guidance, citing B-21, Sentinel and national security space as growth drivers. RTX Corporation (NYSE: RTX) sits at the intersection of munitions, missile defense and commercial aerospace propulsion through Pratt & Whitney. GE Aerospace (NYSE: GE) supplies the engine base underpinning much of the commercial and defense fleet and continues to report growth across both markets. Each of these companies is referenced here as market and sector context only. They differ substantially from Starfighters Space in size, stage, capital structure and business model, and are not peers or financial comparables.

About Starfighters Space, Inc.

Starfighters Space (NYSE American: FJET), with a fleet of F-104 aircraft based at NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Midland Air and Space Port in Texas, is the only company in the world with the commercial capability to fly at sustained Mach 2+ speeds for a variety of aerospace applications. The iconic F-104 jets are configurable as a platform for air-launched payloads, training for pilots, and to support RDT&E (research, development, test, and evaluation) for hypersonic technologies, missile defense systems, microgravity science, spaceflight hardware, advanced materials, and defense electronic systems.

Article Source: [1] Starfighters Space, Inc., news release, July 28, 2026, "Starfighters Space Advances 'Wind Tunnel in the Sky' Mach 2+ Flight-Testing Platform."

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