Venus Aerospace is building a hypersonic aircraft that can carry about a dozen passengers, traveling at Mach 9, nine times the speed of sound. The Stargazer, which measures 150 feet long by 100 feet wide, will travel between two cities in the world by flying 6,905 mph at an altitude of 170,000 feet.
Hypersonic is defined as five times the speed of sound. By comparison, the last commercial supersonic jet, the Concorde, traveled at Mach 2, or about, 1,535 mph. The fastest aircraft ever built, Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird traveled at Mach 3.2 (2,455 mph). There are some reports the Blackbird had a faster top speed.
Venus has ground tested a new rotating detonation engine that could go from 0 to 6 times the speed of sound. They will being hypersonic flight testing with a 20-foot drone that the company hopes will reach Mach 5 in 2026-2028 timeframes.
Venus co-founder and CTO Andrew Duggleby plans to move Stargazer from science fiction to reality with a rotating-detonation engine that spins at 20,000 rotations per second. The Rotating detonation means the supersonic combustion happens continuously inside the engine and our video shows the detonation wave moving around the engine at supersonic speeds.
The rotating-detonation concept, which burns 20 percent less fuel than a conventional engine, is being promoted by the US Navy. This technology has been successfully tested before. The Venus test was the first time using a room-temperature storable propellant, which will make the engine more viable for aircraft.
The VDR2 combines the high thrust of a Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) with the efficient cruise of a Ramjet, offering a single engine from take-off up and speeds up to Mach 6, with streamlined airflow for low drag and no need for complex mechanical components.
It. has a simplified design with a compact design with minimal moving parts.
It will be able to takeoff and landing at various airports and flight facilities.
It will have a 30 minutes turnaround time for rapid reusability.
It will use standard, conventional materials for easier production and maintenance.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Just to put out my 2 cents…
This idea is obviously ridiculous. They want to design a passenger plane that goes faster than any the military ever created, and the only innovation they have is an engine that’s 20% more efficient than normal? They still have to deal with the terrible drag heating that occur at those speeds that aerospace materials still can’t really handle, maintain a large enough fuel capacity to enable long distant trips that keep the whole idea worthwhile, and meet the incredibly demanding safety requirements for flying at those heights and speeds, all while mere supersonic flight isn’t commercially available! To me, this sounds like an obvious ploy to separate rich investors from there money.
Nice graphics. Note that it is NOT a flying aircraft yet. A matter of time? Perhaps.
Also, there’s a certain cavalier disregard for the envelope-of-survivability. 170,000 ft altitude means pressurized cabins, of course, but depressurization would be lethal, even under 100% pure oxygen. That’ll get FAA approval in a snap, right?
[To that, it is the same problem with Musk’s around-the-world-ballistic deals. The short answer is, “wear space suits”. Not terribly sexy of course.]
Separate pressurized compartments for the pilots and the passengers, inside a pressurized fuselage would help.
For Starship passengers on point-to-point, and interplanetary trips, use a “torpedo” approach.
One or two person ejectable pods, with parachutes and life support.
Something happens during launch or flight, blow the tubes.
An upscale tanning bed experience for point-to-point, a sleeping solution and back-up refuge on trips to the Moon, Mars, or Venus.
Nestled in tubes surrounded by water, a cozy hang-out during Solar storms.
I’d fly, but not without hope of surviving some level of, “Oops”.
Wouldn’t it be done via mini cabins individually pressurized? Essentially an extended spacesuit?
I’m at a loss for an actual business case for this as a passenger airplane, in an age when teleconferencing is so cheap they give it away for free.
Sure, it sounds like some really high price people might find it cost effective for in person meetings, but are in person meetings cost effective to begin with?
This is at the edge of what would be needed to reach a low-hung tether, or rotating Ring tether.
Craft like these, with a transferable cargo or passenger pod, independently pressurised, could carry payloads up for transfer.
Material science has reached a point that proper investment can pull something like Graphene Super Layer tether production.
Isaac Aurthur just released a couple great videos on the tether aspect.
Hanging a couple dozen tethers would allow for frequent overhead passes, in turn supporting a large number of transferring craft.
Overall, a pretty cheap route to get folk out of the hole.
Interesting. I think that it looks like the RDRE works at lower speeds like a traditional air-augmented rocket like the Gnome or Meteor missiles.