DESTINUS: SWISS START-UP AIMS TO BUILD HYPERSONIC AIRCRAFT
Swiss start-up Destinus, founded in 2021 by physicist and serial entrepreneur Mikhail Kokorich, is developing a hypersonic aircraft powered by liquid hydrogen with the goal of connecting London to New York in 90 minutes and Europe to Australia in four hours. The project is backed by 27 million euros in grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science, and the company has already flown two unmanned scale demonstrators, Jungfrau and Eiger, validating core elements of its propulsion approach.
The Technology: Hydrogen Propulsion at Mach 5
The ultimate target is the Destinus S, a 25-passenger commercial aircraft cruising at Mach 5 (approximately 6,100 km/h), which the company is targeting for entry into service between 2030 and 2032. At that speed, the aircraft would need to handle aerodynamic heating that conventional aluminium airframes cannot survive, placing extreme demands on materials and thermal management systems.
Liquid hydrogen (LH2) is the chosen fuel because it delivers roughly 2.5 times the energy density of kerosene by mass, a critical advantage when every kilogram of fuel must justify its weight at hypersonic speed. The challenge is that LH2 must be stored at -253 degrees Celsius, requires tanks of equal volume to conventional jet fuel tanks, and costs approximately 20 times more per energy unit than kerosene. Destinus is working to address all three constraints through its ongoing propulsion research programme in Spain and Switzerland.
Scale Demonstrators: Jungfrau and Eiger
Before committing to a full-scale prototype, Destinus built two unmanned test aircraft named after iconic Swiss peaks. Jungfrau validated basic aerodynamic performance. Eiger demonstrated hydrogen propulsion in flight, making it one of the first aircraft to fly on liquid hydrogen in Europe. At the 2023 Paris-Le Bourget Air Show, Destinus unveiled the Destinus 3, a hydrogen-fuelled supersonic demonstrator that combines a kerosene turbojet with a liquid hydrogen afterburner, the propulsion configuration intended to bridge between today's technology and the full hypersonic system.
The infrastructure investment funded by Spain focuses on propulsion component development in the Madrid region, where Destinus is building the test facilities needed to run hydrogen engines at the temperatures and pressures required for supersonic and hypersonic flight. The remaining research budget addresses hydrogen storage, fuel system safety, and engine integration.
Is Hypersonic Commercial Aviation Realistic?
The challenges are significant. At Mach 5, the Destinus S will face aerodynamic heating that requires advanced ceramic or composite materials across large structural areas. Ground handling of liquid hydrogen demands specialist infrastructure at every airport. The economics depend heavily on aircraft utilisation rates and hydrogen production costs, which are currently far above those of jet fuel.
Yet the same arguments applied to Concorde in the 1960s, and the aircraft flew commercially for 27 years. If green hydrogen production costs fall as projected over the next decade and materials technology continues its rapid advance, the operating economics of hypersonic hydrogen aviation look increasingly viable. Destinus is not alone in betting on this trajectory: Hermeus, Venus Aerospace, and several defence-backed programmes are pursuing similar goals on parallel timelines.
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Photo: Destinus
