A company in Texas’ Space City aims to achieve high-speed flight

Venus Aerospace test launched a rocket engine that will attempt to fly passengers across the Pacific Ocean in two hours.

By Felicity GuajardoJune 3, 2025 2:16 pm, ,

Houston-based company, Venus Aerospace, is aiming to advance aircraft travel through hypersonic flight. Their goal is to fly passengers across the Pacific Ocean in two hours using a rocket engine.

Venus Aerospace recently test launched the engine that ignited for seven seconds – a success in aircraft manufacturing. 

Andrea Leinfelder, space reporter for the Houston Chronicle, has been covering Venus Aerospace since the start. She reported on the recent launch and spoke to Texas Standard about what this means for the future of airplane flight. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: So first, can you explain to us what hypersonic flight is and how this would work? 

Andrea Leinfelder: Yes, so Venus Aerospace is trying to create a plane that would do high-speed flight. It would go four times the speed of sound and it would fly from California to Tokyo in about two hours. And so it’s kind of like the Concorde, but faster.

So can you tell us about some of the hurdles that’s come with building this kind of high-powered engine? 

Yeah, well, this engine, what was special about the test on May 14 is that it was what’s called a “rotating detonation rocket engine.” And it was the first full-scale flight of this kind of engine here in the U.S.

This type of engine’s been ignited in some other academic or lab-based tests, but the company says that what they did – integrating, launching, proving that this type of engine can survive and perform in the real world – they called that a world first. So that’s why this test was something unique.

And seven seconds, I guess, was that a big deal? 

They told me that it went exactly as they had planned. So, that is what they wanted in the test. They wanted it to be seven seconds.

One of the important notes that they [gave me] was that the rocket experienced 4Gs, which is four times the force of gravity. So it just shows that it can really accelerate and get going.

But if you’re on one of their passenger flights in the future, it’ll be a much gentler ride. You’re not gonna go from zero to 4G’s in seven seconds.

So what would it look like? I was reading into this. It sounds like there would be a takeoff and then at some point this second rocket would kind of kick in. Is that sort of the plan right now? 

So, the rocket they tested is the one that they’ll use to take off. And so the reason this rocket is special is that it’s really very efficient. So it needs less propellant, which means that it can carry more mass for other things.

In other industries, it could get a rocket to push more to space or get a missile to go farther. But for the rocket-powered aircraft, having more mass means you can get wings and landing gear.

This engine is what really gets them up and going. And then they’ll transition to a second engine that will maintain flying at four times the speed of sound once they’re cruising.

But yeah, this engine that was tested is designed to be the first part of that system and then the transition to the second one for the cruising portion of the flight.

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Well, you mentioned those other two uses, missiles and spacecraft. As you say, those are things that this could be used for, it’s just not their primary focus at the moment – is that right? 

Yeah, so it’s actually giving the company revenues. So, they want to build this rocket-powered aircraft that can go four times the speed of sound. That is their goal. 

Once they started creating this engine, this really fuel-efficient engine… To give you an idea of how efficient it is, a traditional rocket’s mass can be 90% propellant. But this new engine, the company’s saying that could be reduced to 67%. And that’s a huge reduction. 

So for a rocket, it could push more stuff into space. A missile could go farther. As they’ve created this engine, companies are approaching them, asking to buy or license technology. So it’s starting to become like a new source of revenue for the company as they work towards their goal.

Then their goal really is this faster – not space flight – regular flight, like regular people do. But would this regular flight be accessible to people? I mean, it sounds like this type of research would be really expensive. But maybe we don’t just have all that information just yet.

I feel like the first time I talked to them, they kind of compared it a little bit to business-class flights, right? Like most of us will never fly business because it’s just very expensive, unless your company’s paying for it. 

I don’t know what the cost is gonna be and I don’t know how accessible it’s gonna be, but there is a market that does pay for those business-class flights. So there will be a market that wants to go around the world and come home in time for dinner. 

And that’s their slogan, is to “go around the world and be back in time for dinner.”

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