Though these others are using single or multiple J85s for development (in Boom’s SB-1 demonstrator and Hermeus’ Chimera Turbine Based Combined Cycle engine), Destinus is distinguished by the effort it is said to be making to convert more powerful off-the-shelf production engines to run on liquid hydrogen for the subsonic to supersonic portions of its hyperplane’s flight envelope. The drones have flown with power from a General Electric J85 turbojet, a familiar compact engine choice for supersonic and hypersonic aircraft developers like Boom and Hermeus. The test flights appear to be relatively straightforward data-collection exercises focused on the fairly generic waverider hypersonic vehicle shape (see Hermeus’ Quarterhorse, NASA’s X-37B and others) and a basic remote guidance system. One of these is the reality that reusable hypersonic aircraft will emerge first as subscale drones for military and research applications.ĭestinus has itself taken a couple steps down the drone path, flying a subscale, remotely-piloted subsonic prototype called the Jungfrau (in a nod the Swiss mountain) in November 2021 and following up with another slightly larger prototype drone (Eiger) which flew in October 2022. The affable and breezy way in which he answers questions about his new company is pleasant but obscures what is surely a sensibility that puts an attractive sketch of future plans ahead of pesky real-world details. Despite his somewhat messy exit from Momentus - the company recently finalized a share repurchase agreement for a final payment of $10 million to is two founders, Kokorich and Lev Khasis - Kokorich is generally well-regarded by others in the private sector hypersonics game. That led to a move from California (where Momentus is based) to the capital-friendly climes of Switzerland and the founding of Destinus. government expressed national security concerns related to ownership. Kokorich exited Momentus in January 2021 after the U.S. Momentusĭestinus’ founder is a Russian emigre whose background includes founding in-space transportation and infrastructure company, Momentus, as well as other space and consumer goods firms.
#Boom supersonic stock ticker serial#
Serial entrepreneur Mikhail Kokorich's startups include Detinus, Momentus, Dauria Aerospace, Astro. Though we didn’t discuss this conventional wisdom specifically when I spoke to Kokorich last week, he seemed undaunted by the prospects of the hypersonic airplane business. Other private sector hypersonics firms I spoke with on background concede that commercial hypersonic planes are many years over the horizon and even then, likely limited in number. Where thousands of hyperplanes might come from is anyone’s guess.
Thousands of hyperplanes and 1000 employees are expected to be in operation by then.” The first commercial intercontinental flights of its air freighter (with a payload of one ton) “are planned for 2025,” its in-house blog says, “with a final stage of 100 tons across the globe by 2029. Instead, the company aimed to build a hyper-fast freighter aircraft, able to deliver urgent air cargo anywhere on the planet in six to 12 hours instead of the current 24-72, “and at a comparable cost”.ĭestinus has claimed this will happen at what most would consider hypersonic speed. It’ll be able to reach Australia from Europe in 90 minutes “in a climate-neutral manner”.īut unlike its American counterparts, Destinus has not aimed to build unmanned subscale hypersonic airplanes for the military before ultimately developing and flying a hypersonic airliner.
The result will be an hyperplane that climbs to near-space altitudes, accelerating to Mach 15. In short, it goes like this ĭestinus wants to revolutionize air transport with a hybrid hypersonic aircraft that combines hydrogen-fueled air-breathing turbojet engines for takeoff, landing, and flights at subsonic and supersonic speeds with a separate cryogenic (ramjet) rocket engine which will boost the aircraft to hypersonic speeds. It’s a vision Kokorich has repeated for a number of media outlets in the past couple years. Destinus lays out its vision in the post Why Mikhail Kokorich is Building a Space Startup on its company website.
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