Rocket-Powered Flight Achieved from Dawn’s Mk-II Aurora Spaceplane

Dawn Aerospace successfully flew the Mk-II Aurora under rocket power for the first time in March 2023. The Mk-II Aurora is a suborbital spacecraft that will be the first plane to fly to space and back again twice in one day. It is designed and manufactured between Dawns’ team in Delft, NL and Christchurch, NZ. A perfect combination of Dutch innovation and Kiwi ingenuity. The Mk-II will be used for suborbital research, while also acting as a technology demonstrator for our next vehicle, the Mk-III Apogee. Read about the significance of this achievement, and more about our future plans, from CEO Stefan Powell: