A Chinese space company called Space Transportation has announced plans for a hypersonic plane capable of flying from Beijing to New York in an hour.
The “rocket with wings” is expected to fly at an astounding 7,000 miles per hour, with testing set to begin next year, according to the New York Post. Scientists anticipate that it will be ready for flight by 2024.
The speed at which the plane is expected to fly leaves no doubt about its hypersonic capability.
“We are developing a winged rocket for a high-speed, point-to-point transportation, which is lower in cost than rockets that carry satellites and faster than traditional aircraft,” the company said in a recent interview with Yicheng Times.
The space plane would be totally reusable and would aim to provide quick transport between two points on Earth via suborbital travel, said Space.com.
Important Innovations Collection: China's "Rocket With Wings" Passenger Plane https://t.co/VP9FHVlA2N pic.twitter.com/AHcq9Su4ys
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Very ambitious goals are demonstrated in a video presentation on Space Transportation’s website. The video depicts animated passengers boarding a rocket-powered aircraft. Following a vertical launch, the plane separates from the rocket-powered wing and continues its suborbital voyage to Dubai in the Middle East, landing vertically on three legs deployed from the rear.
The corporation, whose full name is Beijing Lingkong Tianxing Technology Co., Ltd., announced that ground tests will begin in 2023, with a first flight scheduled for 2024 and a crewed flight in 2025, according to Space.com. Going even further, the company has planned a test flight of a global, or orbital, crewed space vehicle in 2030.
PRC successfully tested a prototype of the reusable launch vehicle with horizontal aircraft landing "TianXing-2" (Jiageng-Il) / "嘉庚 一 2) developed by the Chinese startup Space Transportation and engineers at Xiamen University. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/rFjN8hz1D0
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