The Spaceship Company, which builds air and space craft for its parent company, Virgin Galactic, announced a new design for a commercial airliner that can fly at three times the speed of sound, as well as a partnership with engine-maker Rolls-Royce, which built the engines for one of the few operational supersonic airliners ever made, the Concorde.
The Spaceship Company (TSC) announced on Monday its first-stage design scope, as well as a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Rolls-Royce for collaboration on a supersonic passenger aircraft.
“We are pleased to collaborate with the innovative team at Rolls-Royce as we strive to develop sustainable, cutting-edge propulsion systems for the aircraft, and we are pleased to be working with the FAA [US Federal Aviation Administration] to ensure our designs can make a practical impact from the start. We have made great progress so far, and we look forward to opening up a new frontier in high speed travel.”
Concept drawing of The Spaceship Company’s proposed supersonic passenger airliner
While perhaps best known for its luxurious automobiles, the British engineering company Rolls-Royce has long been a major player in airplane engine manufacturing as well. According to a study of corporate revenues, Rolls-Royce was the 24th-largest defense contractor worldwide in 2019, Defense News reported.
A file picture taken on June 14, 2003 shows French Air France supersonic plane Concorde preparing for its last landing, looked by French policemen, at Le Bourget (north of Paris) airport during the Paris Air Show
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The only other supersonic airliner was the Soviet Union’s Tu-144, which debuted several years before the Concorde and had a similar top speed, but which suffered from reliability problems that saw it transition into use as a cargo aircraft instead of a passenger plane.
Concept drawing of The Spaceship Company’s proposed supersonic passenger airliner
Virgin Galactic has primarily focused on building a viable spaceplane company around its SpaceShipTwo-class spaceplanes and New Mexico spaceport. However, its foray into supersonic airliners will meet much stiffer competition.
Some of the other faster-than-sound passenger projects out there include the X-59, a dart-like plane which NASA and Lockheed Martin are assembling mostly from retired US military aircraft, and Boom Technology’s XB-1, which the company promises will fly for the first time this October.
Concept drawing of The Spaceship Company’s proposed supersonic passenger airliner
Some of the problems now being sorted out are which materials to use in construction in order to “address key challenges in thermal management, maintenance, noise, emissions, and economics that routine high speed commercial flights would entail,” the company said.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
