Showing posts with label Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 24

Superfast Drone


The drone, which resembled a rocket, flew 10 miles (16 km) at Mach 0.9 — over 680 miles per hour — using 80% of the engine's available thrust. This image is purely illustrative. (Image credit: Alexyz3d/Getty Images)





Venus Aerospace has completed the inaugural test flight of a drone fitted with its "rotating detonation rocket engine" (RDRE) — accelerating it to just under the speed of sound. The company wants to one day build superfast commercial jets using this new type of engine.


In the test flight, conducted Feb. 24, the company flew the drone, which is 8 feet (2.4 meters) long and weighs 300 pounds (136 kilograms) to an altitude of 12,000 ft (3658 m) by an Aero L-29 DelfĂ­n plane, before it was deployed and the RDRE was activated, company representatives said in a statement.


The drone flew 10 miles (16 km) at Mach 0.9 — over 680 miles per hour — using 80% of the RDRE’s available thrust. The successful flight proved the viability of RDRE and the associated onboard flight systems. Three weeks earlier, Venus Aerospace demonstrated the viability of its RDRE technology with a long-duration test burn — during which engineers showed their engine worked for the duration of this test flight.  READ MORE...