Seems promising. Why not use an elongated blimp shape? Why the v?
And why can’t the space craft lift off from the ground.
It aims to be a hypersonic vehicle. Blimps aren't brilliant for that use case. (There may also be a structural advantage since it's basically two air beams.)
> why can’t the space craft lift off from the ground
They're using a balloon to get to the edge of the atmosphere and then a lightweight craft to slowly accelerate to orbit from there. The lightweight craft would be too delicate to survive in the atmosphere. The low-altitude craft too heavy to cruise to orbit.
For the upper stage: it would only be an airship at the start, then transition into an inflatable hypersonic lifting body before eventually reaching orbital velocity. Very similar to how a seaplane starts swimming by displacement, then transition to gliding on the water before eventually taking off.
For the lower stage: I suspect the shape is more like a branding thing, and knowledge transfer ("perhaps some of what we would have to learn about v-shaped blimps can be learned in the lower atmosphere?")
This [1] looks like a plasma propulsion engine [2]. They'd need to carry propellant. That said, they're pre-staging, so the traditional rocket equation doesn't apply.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uTfrXf_WHEY
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20161018201525/http://alfven.pri...