Flying at hypersonic speeds may someday be possible thanks to research at Stanford.

A $17 million grant will fund researchers at Stanford, working with the U.S. Department of Energy, to develop simulations of hypersonic flight vehicles.

Hypersonic flight occurs at speeds five times faster than the speed of sound.

Researchers will work to develop algorithms to model the physical phenomena of hypersonic flight, such as turbulence and aerodynamics, using some the world’s fastest supercomputers.

The project will involve 16 faculty members from the Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Chemical Engineering, Aeronautics and Astronautics and Mathematics departments.