Venus Aerospace founders Cessie Duggleby and Andrew Duggleby talked about the Stargazer hypersonic aircraft under construction: At its planned Mach 9 speed, the new ship should carry 12 passengers from San Francisco to Tokyo in just one hour. That’s eleven times faster than a regular long-haul flight.

The new aircraft will be able to develop a speed of over 11,105 km per hour on long flights, which will reduce travel time around the world. To put that in perspective, the Concorde can reach a top speed of Mach 2, or 2,470 km/h. Venus Aerospace CEO Sassi Duggleby and Chief Technical Officer Andrew Duggleby said this will be achieved by combining jet and rocket engines.

Stargazer will take off like a regular jet using jet engines, then switch to rocket engines while away from residential areas. The rocket engine will then enable the aircraft to reach a cruising altitude of 51,816 meters at hypersonic speed. That’s more than four times what most jet planes typically fly today. At such an altitude, passengers will be able to enjoy the view of the Earth’s curvature and get wonderful views of space.

But that won’t be easy, and Venus Aerospace still has a long way to go to achieve this ambitious vision for future travel. They will need to build on existing technologies and, more importantly, develop new ones from the ground up. A notable example is what they call the “world’s first rotary-explosion liquid rocket engine,” or RDRE.

Rocket engines are often better than jet engines because of their superior performance at high altitudes. This is because they do not rely on external oxygen, which is becoming rarer at an altitude of 52 km.

According to Duggleby, the RDRE (rocket engine) creates higher temperatures and pressures than conventional rocket engines due to its higher combustion rate, providing more thrust with less fuel consumption. “We have to overcome an incredible number of obstacles”said Sassy Duggleby. “We take one step at a time and the team continues to make incredible progress and reach the milestones we want to reach”.

Andrew said Stargazer will carry “a kind of liquid air” to power its rocket engines. Last year Venus reached an important milestone by creating “room temperature liquid fuel” that could be used in the RDRE. This groundbreaking achievement provided the technical knowledge and development necessary to move on to the next stages of development and flight testing.

Stargazer has developed a new wave driver design that allows its aircraft to fly more efficiently. This acceleration glide flight mode allows the jet to fly over shock waves generated at hypersonic speeds.

According to Andrew, Venus is currently testing engines with Airbus Ventures as an investor. It is expected to be integrated into the drone for further development in the near future.