Highest-performance vehicle to take off from a runwayFriday 23 Aug 2024 Dawn Aerospace has announced the completion of another flight test campaign of their Mk-II rocket-powered aircraft. The campaign (dubbed Campaign 2-2) saw three flights completed in late July. In flight three, they achieved a maximum speed and altitude of Mach 0.92 (967 km/h) and 50,000ft (15.1km). That is 3x and 5x of what they had achieved in the previous campaign – a massive jump in demonstrated performance.They are now poised to fly supersonic in Campaign 2-3, scheduled for September. But that is just the beginning. In many respects, the Mk-II is slated to be the highest-performance vehicle to take off from a runway. By the end of 2025, they’re looking to:
They have spent about US$10 million on the program to date, and plan to complete it for under $20 million total. So why do they think they will be able to achieve such high performance, with such modest investment? And how are they able to progress through flight testing so quickly compared to other rocket development programs? In short, they realised they were building aircraft with the performance of a rocket, not a rocket with wings. More >> Check out this amazing footage from Dawn Aerospace’s test flight in late July (with their aircraft climbing to 50,000 feet, taking off from Glentanner aerodrome near Mt Cook, NZ) and Kiwi ingenuity in making all this happen. Source: Dawn Aerospace |
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