Lockheed Martin, the renowned aircraft manufacturer, recently posted a tweet that has fueled speculation about the existence of its ultrafast jet, the Darkstar, reportedly developed for the U.S. military. The tweet featured the SR-71 Blackbird, acknowledged as the fastest crewed air-breathing jet aircraft. Aviation experts suggest that the tweet might be a subtle reference to the long-rumored hypersonic successor to the Blackbird, the SR-72, which has yet to be officially confirmed.
Lockheed Martin’s rendering of the Darkstar has a unique long blended wing and fuselage with tiny wings, and the Skunk Works logo on the tail fin. Former Lockheed CEO, Marilyn Hewson, once described the plane as capable of achieving speeds of Mach 6. The SR-72 features prominently in Tom Cruise’s film, Top Gun: Maverick, a blockbuster movie that has received six Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture, Film Editing, and Visual Effects, and won the Oscar for Best Sound.
While the existence of the SR-72 remains unconfirmed, there is no doubt that the interest in hypersonic aircraft is growing worldwide. The European aviation company, Destinus, is already building a hybrid hypersonic plane that combines hydrogen-fueled air-breathing turbojet engines for takeoff, landing, and subsonic and supersonic flights with a rocket engine that boosts the aircraft to hypersonic speeds. Meanwhile, China has been reportedly deploying hypersonic missiles that could strike U.S. bases in the Pacific in case of a conflict over an invasion of Taiwan, as per the Defense Intelligence Agency’s head of science and technology.
As the race to develop hypersonic technology continues, experts suggest that it is only a matter of time before this technology becomes a reality.
