This Rocket-Aircraft Combo Aims To Fly From Beijing To NYC In Just An Hour

Space Transportation, an aerospace company based in China, has announced that it is building a winged rocket and aircraft hybrid that could be used for space tourism in the future.

If that didn’t sound like a lofty enough goal, the firm plans for the aircraft to double up as a supersonic jet, flying passengers from Beijing to New York City in just an hour.

According to Robb Report, the brand’s site depicts passengers boarding an aircraft with two rocket boosters attached to its glider wing. Upon liftoff, the plane will detach from the wing to travel through suborbital space, while the boosters return to the launch site to be reused.

“We are developing a winged rocket for high-speed, point-to-point transportation, which is lower in cost than rockets that carry satellites and faster than traditional aircraft,” the firm said in an interview with Yicheng Times.

As per Space.com, the company revealed that it will be conducting ground tests by next year, with additional plans for a first test flight in 2024 followed by a crewed flight in 2025. 

Other similar projects are in the works globally, including Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity space vehicle, which successfully conducted a crewed suborbital flight with founder Richard Branson last year. 

In 2017, SpaceX had also introduced an ‘Earth to Earth’ concept to make use of its Starship rockets as city-to-city passenger aircraft, though not much has been revealed about the concept. 

Will Space Transportation’s ambitious rocket-aircraft combination see the light of day? If it does succeed, it would certainly be a significant improvement on travel time between far-flung destinations of the globe.

[via Robb Report and Space.com, cover image via Space Transportation]