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Chinese aerospace scientists building prototype hypersonic passenger jet
December 15th 2021
A Chinese research team is building a prototype hypersonic plane with the aim of having a 10-person passenger plane capable of flying at Mach 5 in operation by 2035. Read More » The aircraft uses an unorthodox twin-engine design rejected by NASA more than two decades ago and declassified in 2011. NASA deemed the project too expensive and also had concerns the engines, designed to operate as a normal jet engines at lower speeds, would ignite when switching to a high-speed mode. When scientists at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics tested the prototype in a wind tunnel and simulated flight conditions of Mach 4 to Mach 8, they found the engine could start as its original designer, Ming Han Tang, had predicted.
