Spaceplanes Are Upon Us

Last November, Dawn Aerospace broke some aerospace records. Its spaceplane – the Mk-II Aurora – hit Mach 1.1 on its way to climbing to 20km faster than any aircraft that has ever taken off from a runway. (The previous record was set by an F-15 in 1975.)

Dawn, based in New Zealand, now looks to make flying to the edge of space a regular occurrence. Its craft blends rocket engines with a plane design and can carry small payloads (up to 5kg) for defense, science and commercial customers. In June, the company signed a deal with a group in Oklahoma to perform dozens of flights from the Oklahoma Air and Space Port - and, yes, that’s a real thing.

We sat down with Stefan Powell, the co-founder, CEO and CTO of Dawn, to talk about spaceplanes, Dawn’s satellite propulsion business and the aerospace scene in New Zealand and Europe.

Dawn has moved quite quickly for an aerospace company and, like Rocket Lab before it, stunned the world by doing much of innovation from New Zealand, which has not historically been an aerospace power. Its ability to get to the edge of space and back multiple times a day is unique, and it has plans for even bigger craft in the future.

This episode was made possible by the fine people at E1 Ventures, who happen to invest in hard-tech things like aerospace.