A Qatar Executive Gulfstream G650ER has broken the speed record for polar circumnavigation of the Earth, accomplishing the flight in 46 hours, 39 minutes, and 38 seconds. Scheduled to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission, the flight departed NASA's Cape Canaveral facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida July 9 at 9:32 a.m.-the same time as the moon mission launch a half-century earlier-and landed July 11 morning at 8:12 a.m., shaving 5 hours, 51 minutes, and 26 seconds off the previous speed record set in 2008.
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