A German aerospace company is revisiting plans to design a rocket-propelled jet that can take passengers to the other side of the world in just an hour and a half. And if they get enough funding, they can make it happen by 2040.
DLR is a German aerospace agency that specializes in complex flight systems. In 2007, the agency designed a concept for a hypersonic airliner capable of flying 50 passengers from Europe to Australia in just 90 minutes. The plans were shelved at the time, but now, and nearly ten years later, the company is revisiting the concept and laying out a roadmap to make it real.”A new kind of high-speed transport based on a two-stage Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) has been proposed by DLR under the name SpaceLiner,” the company said in a statement.
Described as a suborbital, hypersonic, winged passenger jet, the idea is now being fully investigated by the DLR’s Space Launcher System Analysis (SART).
“We want to come up with a development road map,” Martin Sippel, leader of the SpaceLiner SART told Aviation Week. “We need a mission definition and this year, we will do that in Phase A.”
The idea involves two stages, the first consisting of a 9-engine powered rocket. The rocket engine will be powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, making it environmentally friendly as well as effective. Propelling the passenger orbiter, the rocket would be capable of reaching 20 times the speed of sound in less than 10 minutes.