Dawn Aerospace, a startup developing space launch technology and hypersonic propulsion systems, completed its first supersonic flight successfully on November 12, 2024.
The unmanned Mk-II Aurora prototype reached a speed of Mach 1.1 becoming the first civilian aircraft to break the sound barrier since the Concorde.
The flight test took place near Mount Cook, in New Zealand’s South Island, with the aircraft reaching an altitude of 82,500 ft (25.14 km).
The Mk-II Aurora also set another record during its ascent, becoming the fastest aircraft to climb from the ground up to an altitude of 20km. It took 118.6 seconds for the Mk-II Aurora to reach this altitude, which is 4.2 seconds faster than the previous record holder, a modified F-15 fighter jet, in the 1970s.
Another remarkable aspect of the Aurora Mk-II is that six hours after its record-setting flight, the experimental aircraft took off again on yet another test flight.
One of the next goals of the startup, which has teams distributed between New Zealand, the Netherlands, France, and the United States, is to build the first vehicle capable of flying at an altitude of 100km twice on the same day.
Dawn Aerospace aims to develop what it calls, “an aircraft with the performance of a rocket”. The unmanned aircraft would be certified as an aircraft and be able to conduct several missions per day, conventionally taking off from runways as short as 1,000 meters and flying in non-exclusive airspace. This technology is expected to have a broad range of applications in science, defense, and emergency response.