Venus Aerospace, a Houston startup, said its working on a Mach 12 hypersonic aircraft.
Travel between Los Angeles and Tokyo could take a hour, the company said.
Prime Movers Lab led Venus Aerospace’s $3 million seed funding round in March.
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Venus Aerospace, a Houston startup, said it’s working on a Mach 12 hypersonic aircraft that would cut travel time from Los Angeles to Tokyo to one hour.
“This is for regular people,” CEO Sarah “Sassie” Duggleby told Bloomberg Businessweek.
At top speed, the aircraft would be moving about 12 times the speed of sound, The Houston Chronicle reported. Most commercial flights between Los Angeles and Tokyo make the trip in about 12 hours.
The company said on its website that it’s made breakthroughs in engine efficiency, aircraft shape, and edge cooling technology. That tech would make “one-hour global transport cost-effective,” the company said.
the edge of space, hitting Mach 3 and an altitude of 55.45 miles. Space begins about 50 miles above the Earth’s surface, according to NASA and the US military.
Venus Aerospace relocated to Texas from California to be closer to the Houston Spaceport, said Brandon Simmons, of Prime Movers Lab, in a blog post.
Simmons wrote that Duggleby previously worked at Virgin Orbit. Cofounder and CTO Andrew Duggleby held positions at both Virgin Orbit and Virgin Galactic. The startup has about 15 employees.
