Dawn Aerospace is a small startup with big ambitions: to build the first vehicle to fly over 100 km above the Earth — twice in one day.
A couple of weeks back, the budding company — headquartered in the Netherlands and New Zealand — took a major step toward that goal. Its reusable, rocket-powered Mk-II Aurora aircraft reached speeds of Mach 0.92 (967 km/h) at altitudes over 15km.
While far from its eventual target, that is three times the speed and five times the height of its previous test, conducted last year. The startup has more flights scheduled for September, where it plans to blast past Mach 1 — the speed of sound. And it’s not stopping there.