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New Atlas: Dawn Aerospace spaceplane prototype hits transonic speeds


Aerospace startup Dawn Aerospace has made a major advance in its push to create a highly reusable spaceplane. The latest test flight reached transonic speeds of Mach 0.92 and an altitude of 50,000 ft (15,000 m), or 3 times and 5 times, respectively, better than before.

These days, there are any number of companies working on projects to get into commercial supersonic or hypersonic flight, develop spaceplanes, or generally launch small satellites into low Earth orbit. With the latest flight of its uncrewed Mk-II rocket-powered aircraft in July as part of the company's Campaign 2-2 development program, Dawn Aerospace claims to have improved the vehicle's performance by three to five times, depending on the parameters. When Campaign 2-3 begins in September, the goal is to go supersonic for the first time, with the eventual plan to climb faster than an F-15, reach greater speeds than an SR-71 Blackbird, and to become the first vehicle to fly above an altitude of 100 km (62 miles) twice in a single day.

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