A Houston startup developing hypersonic aircraft wants to fly passengers from Los Angeles to Tokyo in an hour.
Venus Aerospace aims to develop a hypersonic aircraft capable of ferrying 12 passengers around the globe at nine times the speed of sound. Earlier this year, the growing aerospace company announced raising $20 million in Series A financing to further develop its next-generation rocket engine and the design of its aircraft.
But before building a Mach 9 hypersonic plane, Venus is starting a bit smaller and slower. Andrew Duggleby, co-founder and CTO at Venus, said the company is building a 5-foot-scale subsonic drone to fly around locally. By December 2023, Venus plans to develop a 14-foot drone capable of achieving Mach 5 speeds. Venus is working with Windhover Labs in Texas City on developing flight control software to create systems for hypersonic vehicles.
"It's the tension between a vehicle that's designed to fly efficiently at Mach 9 but that also has the right stability to take off and land at an airport," he said. "You can only do so much of that in wind tunnels."
On June 7, Venus released the first conceptual vehicle design for its hypersonic aircraft, the Stargazer.
Venus was founded in 2020 by Andrew Duggleby and his wife, CEO Sassie Duggleby, after both previously worked at Virgin Orbit. Sassie worked in launch systems engineering and business development at Virgin, while Andrew led the firm's launch operations.
After starting Venus in Southern California during the Covid-19 pandemic, the team began searching for a place to grow. Texas was the firm's first stop.
"We looked at Austin, like all good tech companies do," Sassie Duggleby said. "Then, somebody at the governor's office … said, 'Have you looked at Houston? Houston has the Spaceport.'"
Venus first moved to Houston in January 2021 and spent about eight months looking for a facility before establishing a presence at the Houston Spaceport at Ellington Field. The company operates out of a 30,000-square-foot hangar and rented an empty lot next door to perform tests for its rocket engine. Other companies working in the aerospace and space services economy — Houston-based Axiom Space, Houston-based Intuitive Machines and Charlotte, North Carolina-based Collins Aerospace — have also established presences at the Houston Spaceport.
"As we fill it out more and ultimately start building out some test vehicles, it's huge to be able to do that here," Andrew Duggleby said.
Venus has a team of 55 employees — up from three employees in January 2021. The firm expects to hire about 15 more employees to reach a headcount of 70, Sassie Duggleby said.
Venus Aerospace has raised more than $33 million in total funding. The firm closed on a $3 million seed funding round in March 2021 and has received $1 million in non-dilutive government funding. The Dugglebys said future work on government projects will give Venus even more opportunities to develop its hypersonic aircraft.
