The Pentagon is scheduled Thursday to test an aircraft capable of reaching speeds of up to 13,000 miles per hour, or about 3.6 miles per second.

The launch of the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, or HTV-2, was scheduled for Wednesday but was pushed back by a day because of bad weather, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The experimental aircraft is scheduled to take off on Thursday morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, when an Air Force Minotaur IV rocket will take HTV-2 to the edge of the atmosphere of Earth, but won't enter space with the aircraft.

After HTV-2 separates from the rocket, it will fly over the Pacific Ocean at speeds of up to Mach 20. That's fast enough to carry passengers from London to Sydney in less than 60 minutes, said digitaltrends.com.

The event can be followed on the Pentagon's Twitter feed.

The aircraft has been developed by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for military use.

The U.S. military is interested in developing hypersonic aircraft for its potential ability to reach any part of the world in less than an hour.

California Twitter London California