Founded in 2017, Dawn Aerospace is a New Zealand-based company building a rocket-powered aircraft for supersonic flight. The team, which has about 130 employees, wants to build a space transportation network and has built a foundation in the aerospace industry by supplying safe, accessible propellants and propulsion systems that various classes of satellites have used. According to the company, it already has 76 thrusters in space.
The company is also working on the Mk-II Aurora spaceplane, a demonstrator aircraft that combines the performance of a rocket with the quick turnaround of an aircraft. While Mk-II is a tech demonstrator, it will also be used as a suborbital vehicle for climate and scientific payloads. In the long term, Mk-II will inform the design of Dawn’s Mk-III, the company’s orbital vehicle for launching satellites.
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About 10 days ago, the company received a certificate from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to fly the Mk-II Aurora at unlimited speeds, including supersonic, up to 80,000 feet altitude. The certification allows it to fly beyond visual line of sight without the need for restricted airspace.
The Mk-II Aurora is a rocket-powered aircraft that could be the first vehicle ever to fly to the edge of space, about 100 km (62 miles) high, twice in a single day. The aircraft is designed to be rapidly reusable and low-cost, making it well-suited for high-speed flight research, earth observation, and other defense and civil applications.
According to Dawn Aero CEO Stefan Powell, the Mk-II will be the first privately funded UAV to break the sound barrier. The plan is to have the Mk-II flying to the edge of space multiple times per day, which would also set records for speed, altitude, and climb rate for a self-powered aircraft.
According to Powell, at full performance, the Mk-II will fly faster and 2.5 times higher than any prior aircraft that takes off from a runway, including the SR-71 Blackbird, the current record holder.
The upcoming flight test campaign, scheduled to begin this month and run through September, will consist of up to 12 flights. The primary objective is to expand the vehicle’s envelope to Mach 1.1 and 70,000 feet. The team also wants to achieve two flights in a single day to showcase rapid reusability.
And, while electric propulsion has made headway in the satellite industry, Dawn has seen a shift back to chemical propulsion due to decreasing launch costs and demands for responsiveness.
Electric propulsion systems have become popular in the low Earth orbit (LEO) propulsion market over the last ten years, mainly because they have lowered launch costs. However, according to Dawn, chemical propulsions are now about 1/20th of what they were during the space shuttle era and are expected to continue decreasing. The trend is making launch costs a relatively minor factor in mission budgeting.
While electric propulsion is still well-suited for deep space and long-duration missions because it can generate power using solar arrays, chemical propulsion systems win out for missions where revenue, responsibility and responsiveness take high priority.
Satellites with chemical propulsion typically reach their operational orbit quickly, from mere hours to up to three days. Electric propulsion is slow, taking 90 days to reach orbit. According to Dawn, for a satellite generating $20,000 of revenue per day, that’s $1.76 million in lost revenue. Chemical propulsion is more responsive (it’s instantaneous, compared to about 30 minutes), allows rapid re-entry, and generally costs less because the system design is typically less complicated.
Still, chemical systems have disadvantages, like concerns over handling and toxicity and an inability to perform low-thrust maneuvers. So, Dawn has also created cold-gas capable thrusters and non-toxic propellants to present viable, low-cost alternatives.
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