The New Hypersonic Spacecraft

             

Have you imagined traveling far beyond the edge of space? If not then get ready for this new experience. Hypersonic technology has caused maddening influence over the aerospace firms and engineers who are planning to put its capabilities in different air vehicles such as space planes, airplanes and even missiles. Thanks to Venus Aerospace, an ambitious aeronautics company that recently became a part of the aerospace crowd and won the hearts of millions through the release of their new spear shaped space plane called the Mach 9 in Bentonville, Arkansas. The company managed to raise $33 million for the designing and construction of Stargazer, out of which $ 1 million was provided by the government. 

Its Features

The plane has a sleek design and the company has asserted that it will be eco-friendly. Dimension wise, it is 30.5 m wide and 40 m in length. What has caught more attention is the vehicle's incredible speed and high altitude. It is unbelievable, but the plane travels 9 times faster when compared to the speed of sound with an altitude of 51 kilometers. It can carry 12 passengers at a time. Though Stargazer is called the space plane, it is not very efficient to venture to outer space because of its technical limits that impedes its further traveling. The space boundaries are 50 kilometers above the maximum altitude of the plane, which means that Stargazer cannot go further away from the Karman line. However, the passengers will be clearly able to view the spherical boundary of Earth.

If you travel through a commercial flight it will take 11 hours to drop you from Tokyo to Los Angeles. But this stargazer is super-fast and takes just 1 hour. It has an engine similar to the conventional airplane. Currently, it is going through the testing phase in the labs and hypersonic wind tunnels. According to various sources, the first ground test of the plane will be done by 2025 to evaluate its performance. The company's main concern is the safety and reliability of the plane because the public is very much reluctant and has become frantic with fear after the incident of the Concorde plane crash which took place back in 2000. The company will have to remove the deep-seated psychological fears of their target market regarding supersonic vehicles. Moreover, the prices of the tickets will be more or less the same as that of the first-class commercial planes so it might not be affordable for all the commercial airplane passengers. But in future the prices will be brought down.

Seems like the startup has an optimistic and a lucrative game plan. However, the actual results will be revealed once it becomes available for the public.