North Wind’s new hypersonic testing facility will make Rosemount, Minnesota the center of innovation for aeronautics and hypersonic testing across the United States. North Wind’s CEO, Dr. Artie Mabbett, shares with us how their team plans to build and expand the facility in the years to come.

Hypersonic flight, or planes that move five times the speed of sound, could make it possible to travel from Minneapolis to Honolulu in 45 minutes. To get there, the company will start by testing unmanned aircrafts traveling at hypersonic speeds. If they’re successful, one day they’ll try the same with human pilots, then human passengers – the future of hypersonic flight might be pioneered right here in Minnesota.

We dig in to how rapid advances in AI are changing hypersonic testing. “What used to take six months can happening in two and a half minutes,” shared Dr. Mabbett. When a testing facility costs $1 million per week to operate, innovation that happens much faster than it used to will mean massive savings for the companies that was to build and grow.

The future of war is also changing rapidly, and Dr. Mabbett shares more on how the shift from ballistic to hypersonic technologies are going to force us to rethink and revamp the way that our military operates.