Hypersonic plane could fly from Tokyo to Los Angeles in one hour

An American company called Venus Aerospace is working on developing a hypersonic plane that it believes could eventually fly from Tokyo to Los Angeles in about one hour.

Imagine a hypersonic plane that could carry twelve passengers and travel at a speed of Mach 9. That is equivalent to flying at more than 11,000km/h. Thanks to its fuel and speed, Venus Aerospace wants to achieve this with the first hypersonic cross-Earth flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles in ‘Stargazer’ which should take about an hour.

To draw a passenger travel comparison, the retired Franco-British supersonic airliner Concorde, jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) travelled at Mach 2, the equivalent of about 2,100 km/h.

Venus Aerospace is an American company co-founded by Andrew Duggleby, who is the chief technology officer. His wife and partner Sassie commented: “How much does the world change if you can get anywhere in that amount of time?” Before founding Venus Aerospace in the summer of 2020, they both worked for Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit.

The problem that arises? “Mach 9 is really fast, and the plasma engulfs the vehicle when it takes off, just like a spacecraft coming back to Earth through the upper atmosphere”, explained the technology news outlet Ars Technica.

Eric Berger, the Senior Space Editor from the publication, visited the company’s facilities in southeastern Houston and reported his findings.

Faced with this challenge, Andrew Duggleby told Eric that he wants their aircraft to take off and perform a ten-minute boost with its rocket engine, thus sending the plane to an altitude of 50km – which is half the distance to space.

In addition, he intends to make four flights a day and use a combination of room-temperature hydrogen peroxide and Jet-A – the fuel used by jet planes – to fuel the engine.

Regarding the engine, “one key to making it work is rotary detonation because it has the potential to increase fuel efficiency in a variety of applications, from US Navy ships to rocket engines. In addition, the efficiency increased by 10 per cent during laboratory tests”, he explained to Mr Berger.

A total of $41 million in funding has been raised by the company so far from private investors, including major venture capital investments led by Prime Movers Lab. They are a venture capital firm that invests in innovative science companies. Sassie Duggleby insisted that she is busy working on attracting further investment to make Venus Aerospace’s dream a reality.

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