Hermeus Corporation, an aerospace technology start-up based in Atlanta in the United States, has obtained finance from seed funders and private investors to develop an aircraft that will travel at five times the speed of sound.
A maximum speed of Mach 5 (6,100 kilometres per hour) would slash the journey time between London and New York from more than seven hours today to ninety minutes, Hermeus (Atlanta Dekalb-Peachtree) claimed in a statement on the company's website dated May 13.
Among the start-up's founders are engineers from privately funded aerospace manufacturers SpaceX and Blue Origin who led the development of the X-60A, a hypersonic rocket that completed its critical design review in March. The funding is being led by Khosla Ventures, an American venture capital firm focussed on early-stage technology companies.
Hermeus wants to connect the world's cities “significantly faster than ever before," said AJ Piplica, its co-founder and chief executive, who added that it would bring global transportation infrastructure from the equivalent of dial-up into the broadband era.
The first commercial flight could take place ten years from now, he said, with future passengers paying USD3,000 per trip.
Other hypersonic aircraft projects in the pipeline include a NASA (United States of America)-funded quiet supersonic plane being developed by Lockheed Martin to fly by mid-2022; a Mach 5 hypersonic concept unveiled by Boeing; a project by start-up Boom Technology and Virgin Galactic to create an aircraft that can reach Mach 2.2 by 2023; and Aerion AS2, a supersonic 12-passenger business jet under development by Aerion Corporation in collaboration with General Electric, Lockheed Martin, and Honeywell Aerospace aiming for Mach 1.6.
