Earlier this week, Venus Aerospace, a Houston-based aeronautics startup, released renderings for Stargazer—an incredibly fast high-altitude vehicle it’s hoping to develop.
Venus Aerospace has been working on the hypersonic aircraft since 2020, according to a company press release, and it has raised $33 million to build the plane, of which $1 million came from government funding. Hypersonic refers to vehicles or missiles capable of traveling Mach 5 or faster, and Stargazer has the potential to reach Mach 9, or nine times the speed of sound. The vehicle is being designed to hold 12 passengers while it travels at an altitude of 170,000 feet (51.8 kilometers), the company said in an email.
