MK-II Aurora By Dawn Aerospace With the age of the Concorde nothing but memories and relegated to the history books, the continuation of supersonic flight outside of military applications has proved to be elusive. However, in recent years there have been a few companies that have fielded supersonic prototypes that were expected to fulfill different roles once certificated. The road to supersonic operation has not be easy for these companies though with at least one of them even going out of business in pursuit of this goal. Aerion was that company that is now defunct and they tried to develop the Aerion AS2. However, there are a number of other companies still in the race namely, BOOM Supersonic with the Overture, Hermeus with its Quarterhorse demonstrator, QueSST X-59 being developed by NASA/Lockheed Martin and now Dawn Aerospace with the MK-II Aurora demonstrator.
Dawn Aerospace is a New Zealand company developing its uncrewed aircraft-rocket. It will be certified as an airplane with the ability to carry a satellite payload. Dawn Aerospace has extensive experience in propulsion systems for satellites but is now broadening its business trying to access sub-orbital space. The company has conducted tests on the initial flying prototype MK-I and now have progressed to MK-II which has been conducting rocket-powered flights. It has a ceiling of around 60,000 ft and will necessitate Dawn creating an MK-IIB vehicle to take it above that height.
This comes at a good time with the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) granting permission for flights up to 80,000 ft and unrestricted speed. Attempting to break the sound-barrier is now green-lighted by the CAA. After this, Dawn will develop the MK-III. The Aurora is a first-stage demonstrator aircraft for the aforementioned Mk-III—a two-stage-to-orbit model that will take off from the runway and deploy a 250 kilogram satellite at the apex of its flight path. The appeal of this new platform is its reusability and Dawn expects to be able to use it at least twice a day on missions. For more information. Dawn Aerospace 14 Birmingham Drive, Middleton, Christchurch, 8024 www.dawnaerospace.com ***
