Hypersonic space plane could fly from London to New York in 1 hour by 2031

The European Space Agency is spending a significant chunk of cash developing Invictus, a proposed hypersonic space plane that could take you from London to New York in an hour.

Invictus would be halfway between a spacecraft and an airplane.

The goal is to drastically reduce travel times by flying at hypersonic speeds.

The ESA is quite serious about it considering the agency has already given itself a deadline.

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The idea behind the hypersonic ‘space plane’

The ESA is putting funding towards the Invictus research program, combining two technologies with cool acronyms, which space agencies absolutely adore.

The idea is to combine Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) with Horizontal Take-Off and Landing (HOTOL).

Translated into plain English, this means the spacecraft would take off like a plane but travel at a much higher altitude to achieve hypersonic speed.

Space planes as an idea have been around for a while now, but they’ve been tricky to master.

Ordinary jet engines need oxygen to burn, and oxygen is a very scarce commodity in space.

Then there’s the fact that the heat of air friction can melt the engine, which is why the idea is to use pre-cooling, a process that cools down the air, not the engine.

If it sounds complicated when you’re reading about it, just imagine how tricky it must be to actually build.

But the ESA seems quite confident.

The agency says the hypersonic space plane could be ready by 2031.

The ESA is working on some big projects

The European Space Agency might not have the same name recognition as NASA, but it’s still working on some impressive stuff.

It’s developing a space telescope that will look for exoplanets that may potentially contain life, as well as two satellites that can make solar eclipses on demand, which is pretty extraordinary.

The ESA is also one of five agencies that are running and maintaining the International Space Station program.

The other four being Roscomos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), CSA (Canada) and of course NASA.