Potential first hypersonic passenger jet capable of London to New York in one hour set for its test flight

Venus Aerospace’s Stargazer – a proposed hypersonic jet – is set to complete its first test flight.

In theory, the proposed aircraft would be capable of reaching New York from London in one hour.

It sounds like science fiction, and for now, it is.

Having said that, a maiden test flight would certainly be a step in the right direction.

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How Stargazer works

Stargazer is designed to use a combination of rocket engines and jet engines.

Jet engines would only be used for take-off and then, once airborne at 170,000 feet (510 meters), rocket engines would deploy.

Venus isn’t the only company that’s working on hypersonic aircraft.

Hypersonix, an Australian startup, is working on a plane known as Dart AE, which would be capable of flying at Mach 7.

The main difference is that Dart AE is a military project funded by the U.S. DoD, the Department of Defense, with no intention of creating a twin civilian project, at least for now.

Supersonic VS hypersonic 

The test flight is part of the program that Venus is currently working on, and the goal is to create a jet that can fly Mach 9.

They call it the ‘Stargazer‘, and while the plane is still in its prototype phase, the technology behind it is already being tested in the real world.

Venus Aerospace’s test drone completed its first flight earlier this year.

And now there’s another one coming up, scheduled for next year.

The catch is this new drone is – for now – only capable of supersonic speeds.

According to Venus, this is the best way to scale up and build what they call an ‘RDRE’, which stands for rotating detonation rocket engine, which would be capable of flying hypersonic.

The test was conducted with a 300lb drone flying at 12,000 feet at Mach 0.9, or 1,111km/h.