Stargazer is set to become the fastest plane to ever take to the skies.
The hypersonic jet will reach speeds of Mach 9.
This means it will take just one hour to fly across the world.
Costing $33 million to build, passengers are expected to pay a fortune for a plane ticket.
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Venus Aerospace is the tech mastermind behind Stargazer.
The plane is designed for high-speed travel, able to fly 5,000 miles in just one hour.
That’s the distance from San Francisco to Japan, or Houston to London.
Once reaching the other end of the world, the plane only needs two hours of turnaround time before being ready to head back.
The Houston-based company is using a specially designed rotating detonation engine to achieve this feat.
This uses less fuel than a regular engine and is better suited to achieving high speeds.
“Rotating detonation means the supersonic combustion happens continuously inside the engine,” the company says.
Stargazer will use two types of engines, starting with conventional jet engines for take-off
Once it’s reached its cruising altitude of an alarming 170,000 feet, the plane will switch to rocket engines.
With regular planes reaching a maximum of 42,000 feet, a journey on Stargazer is not for the faint-hearted.
Passengers on board will be able to enjoy seeing the curve of Earth as well as the blackness of space.
Besides the terrifying heights, this plane will reach unprecedented speeds.
The term ‘hypersonic’ refers to speeds of Mach 5 or higher.
And Stargazer is much, much higher than that.
The plane will fly 6,905 mph, nine times the speed of sound.
For comparison, the most successful and well-known supersonic jet, Concorde, reached Mach 2.
The fastest aircraft ever built was Blackbird, which traveled at Mach 3.2
So not only will Stargazer be breaking records, it will be smashing them.
Venus Aerospace has been developing the aircraft since 2020.
Now, having raised the $33 million needed to make this concept a reality, flight testing will begin.
First, the company has built a 20-foot drone that it hopes will reach Mach 5.
It will use the data from the drone test to finalize the Stargazer’s design and begin construction.
While several companies are working on hypersonic aircraft, Venus Aerospace’s offering is the fastest of the lot.
The jet will be incredibly narrow to maximize aerodynamics.
This means it will only seat a limited number of passengers.
We can only imagine the cost of a plane ticket.
