Abstract A precooled turbojet engine has been developed by JAXA used for the hypersonic airplane and spaceplane. The subscale engine named “S-engine” whose thrust and weight are about 1.2 kN and 100 kg was designed, fabricated and tested. The components and the system firing tests under the sea-level-static condition were successfully conducted.In the next phase, a flight test of the S-engine is planned using a stratospheric balloon in 2010 called balloon-based operation vehicle (BOV). The vehicle is dropped from an altitude of 40 km by a high altitude balloon. After 40 s free-fall, the vehicle is pulled up and the S-engine operates for 30 s at about Mach 2. High-altitude tests of the core-engine verified the performance and healthiness of the engine under the condition corresponding to the BOV flight trajectory.