Alumni Jeroen Wink and Tobias Knap (Aerospace Engineering) developed the Mk-II Aurora prototype spaceplane through their Dawn Aerospace company. On 12 November, the plane broke the sound barrier over New Zealand. This milestone marks a significant step towards creating a spaceplane that can carry satellites to the edge of space, allowing them to reach their orbit independently, after which the plane returns to Earth.
In 2015, Wink and Knap played a leading role in TU Delft’s DARE rocket-building team with their Stratos II rocket, which was launched from Spain. Twenty minutes later, the rocket splashed down in the ocean. This experience sparked an idea. “We thought rockets should be reusable. Someone with more expertise in aviation brainstormed with us and suggested how it might be done differently,” the engineers told NOS (in Dutch).
On the 12 November flight, the five-metre-long prototype reached a maximum altitude of 25 kilometres. The goal is to achieve 100 kilometres next year, the formal boundary of space. Eventually, a larger craft – 15 metres long and five metres wide – will be able to carry satellites into orbit.
What’s remarkable is that Dawn Aerospace, with offices in Delft and Christchurch, New Zealand, funds its spaceplane development programme through revenues from satellite propulsion systems.
Vlucht 53 with maximum speed of 0,9 Mach and 15 kilometres altitude. (Video: Dawn Aerospace)
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