Hypersonic Hydrogen Jet Aiming to Cutoff Flight Travel Time

Even the world’s fastest travelling option is by air, and nowadays, as usual, a standard passenger plane takes about 20 hours to fly from Europe to Australia.

Thanks to a Swiss startup, Destinus is accelerating aircraft travel to hypersonic speeds aiming to reduce travel time to just four hours.

The man behind this startup is Mikhail Kokorich, a Russian-born physicist and serial entrepreneur creating a hydrogen-powered aircraft prototype with a top speed of Mach 5 and above, which is five times greater than the speed of sound over 6000 kph.

Therefore, the aircraft will touch the upper edge of the earth’s atmosphere at altitudes of more than 50 km, where the drag force is significantly less.

The hypersonic aircraft uses ramjet rocket engines to reach at hypersonic speeds in addition to hydrogen-powered air-breathing turbojet engines for takeoff and landing. The startup claims the jet would be net zero carbon emissions, only emitting heat and water vapours.

Destinus startup’s first aircraft can carry 25 passengers up to 7,500 km and will be ready by the end of this decade. The future aircraft will grow in size, eventually accommodating up to 100 people.

It has been testing its prototype aircraft since a few years ago and announced that last year its second prototype, Eiger, had completed test flights at an airport close to Munich.

The initiative is part of Spain’s push to lead the way in developing and manufacturing hydrogen-based mobility in several industries.

However, Hydrogen-powered aircraft is still an extremely new technology with numerous problems like storage issues, as it is four times lighter than jet fuel and has a high cost.