After years of whispers, Lockheed Martin has confirmed the SR-72 is real.
Like it’s high speed predecessor, the SR-71 Blackbird, the SR-72 was designed by the aircraft manufacturer’s Skunk Works under the name Project Aurora. Popular Mechanics reports the SR-72 will be a strike and reconnaissance aircraft capable of traveling well over Mach 6.
“We’ve been saying hypersonics is two years away for the last 20 years, but all I can say is the technology is mature and we, along with DARPA and the services, are working hard to get that capability into the hands of our warfighters as soon as possible,” said Rob Weiss, Lockheed Martin’s executive vice president and general manager for Skunk Works, in a statement for Aviation Week.
The first Blackbird was built in secret during the darkest days of the cold war. A half-century later and no one has built another aircraft like it.
Lockheed has confirmed that a full scale twin-engine SR-72 won’t be ready for first flight until the early 2030s. Between 2013 and 2017 Lockheed’s Skunk Works had been “conducting ground tests on a combined cycle engine with elements of a scramjet and rocket engine,” reports Popular Mechanics.
Learn more about Project Aurora with the video below.