Taking flight: XCOR Aerospace claims its Lynx spacecraft can travel at a speed of more
than 2,500 mph - and dozens of miles above the earth - before safely landing at
an airport.
A new supersonic aircraft is set to fly civilian passengers into space as early as 2014. Private rocket company XCOR says it will offer a 45 minute round-trip on its "Lynx" aircraft for around 95,000 US dollars.
The Lynx is a precursor to a supersonic plane that the company says will travel between New York and Tokyo in just 90 minutes. With a top speed of 4 thousand kilometers per hour, it will fly outside the earth’s atmosphere for a portion of its journey. Test flights for the Lynx are scheduled to start in early 2013.
Propelled: The Lynx's main engines run with the help of flight weight rocket piston
pump hardware and liquid oxygen.
