Hyperplane Jungfrau – "Russian Elon Musk" builds cargo drone with a speed of 19,000 km/h

Hypersonic is one of the central battlefields of the current arms race. The idea behind this: If missiles move at more than 10 times the speed of sound, they cannot be caught by conventional aircraft and missiles. They would fly about as slowly as a World War I triplane would crawl behind a modern F-22 Raptor. Flight time would shorten all advance warning and response times. Currently, the Russian military seems to be the world leader in this technology.

But in addition to the military, there are civilian projects that also want to build such high-speed systems. With his company Destinus, Russian entrepreneur Mikhail Kokorich is developing a hydrogen-powered, emission-free, transcontinental cargo drone. Kokorich lives in Switzerland and likes to be called the Russian Elon Musk. "Freight" and "drone" are not surprising, because a human being would not survive the acceleration phase to 15 times the speed of sound.

Rocket plus glider

Conceptually, Destinus' Hyperplane is unsurprising; it is intended to "combine the advances of a spaceplane with the simple physics of a glider". What does that mean: The object is launched with a two-stage rocket engine and thus reaches the mesosphere above 50,000 meters. Only there is the air thin enough to endure the frictional heat. At this altitude, the missile then glides around the world above the denser layers of air.

Speaking to DroneTalks, Kokorich said: "The logic is simple. If you want to move something from one place on Earth to another place on Earth, you have to expend energy in multiple directions. First, you have to overcome gravity, as long as you're doing that Airplane keeps in the air. The longer, the more gravity losses. Second, you have to overcome the friction of the air, and third, you have to find the kinetic energy for the top speed."

The energy of the hyper drone is consumed during the launch, once this is reached it is almost irrelevant how far the drone glides around the earth.

The further the cheaper

"Yes, we need to accelerate our rocket engine vehicle to a very high speed. So we need to expend more energy for acceleration. But because we are flying 10 times faster and because we are flying at extremely high altitude... where it's more than 10 times less air than at 10km altitude, our gravitational losses and our aerodynamic losses are extremely small."

At this altitude, the drone "falls" around the world. The whole system shows its strengths at long distances. This makes the concept of cargo interesting, not only is it faster but also cheaper. At least in theory.

"In fact, we can transport things from here to another continent cheaper than normal airplanes. It sounds strange, but it's not; we just use less energy to do it."

The biggest challenge is to develop a rocket engine that can be reused without excessive maintenance. In addition, a civilian company now has to develop a surface for the drone that can withstand the extreme temperatures.

Dangerous technique

Destinus has now opened four offices in Spain, France, Switzerland and Germany. The first round of financing was raised by Kokorich and business friends who were friends. However, the capital requirement is gigantic before series production can begin. A first, albeit slow-flying, prototype called "Jungfrau" has completed its first flight. It was named after the third highest mountain in the Bernese Alps. A larger model is expected to be ready in early 2022. Kokorich freely admits that the prospects for success are open.

Such developments are problematic in terms of security policy. Due to the high speed, even a purely civilian hyperdrone could easily be used as a weapon. You wouldn't even have to pack explosives into the drone. The high speed gives the object enormous kinetic energy, if a hyperplane hitting a target at Mach 15 it would be like a meteor hitting it.