Europe's next-gen launcher finalists


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http://www.spacenews.com/launch/120713-europe-rocket-design-finalist.html

Europe's Next-gen Rocket Design Competition Included Surprise Finalist

FARNBOROUGH, England - Astrium Space Transportation and OHB AG will lead two consortia to perform a design of a new heavy-lift launch vehicle for the European Space Agency (ESA) following a bidding competition that included a surprise third bidder in Reaction Engines Ltd. of Britain, ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said here July 10.

The British bidder, a company that for more than a decade has been designing a spaceplane using a radical new engine design for atmospheric and orbital flight, was not selected for what ESA calls its New European Launch Service.

But ESA, whose Estec technology directorate in Noordwijk, Netherlands, has been monitoring Reaction Engines' work for the past couple of years, was sufficiently impressed with the proposal to ask its launcher directorate to engage with the company starting this month.

"Their proposal did not quite fit the requirements of our solicitation so we could not really assess it," Dordain said here during the Farnborough Air Show. "But we have seen some things that could be of interest and our launcher directorate will begin talks starting July 18 to see if we can reach a technical understanding."

Astrium Space Transportation is prime contractor for Europe's Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket. Its consortium includes ELV of Italy, which is prime contractor for Europe's new Vega small-satellite launcher.

OHB of Germany is a major Ariane 5 supplier through its MT Aerospace division.

The two teams have begun work under one-year contracts valued at about 2 million euros ($2.5 million) each. Both will provide a near-term report to ESA in September for the agency to use in preparation for a late-November meeting of ESA governments to set multiyear budget and program priorities.

The New European Launch Service is a reversal of ESA's past practice with respect to major developments. In the past, the agency would work with its governments to determine each nation's level of enthusiasm for a given project. A budget would be set after the national contributions are added together, and only then would an industrial team be assembled.

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ESA officials have been spooked by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., which has demonstrated its technical prowess with the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo vehicle to the international space station. SpaceX officials say one of the keys to its success is that Falcon 9 is built in one factory owned by SpaceX.

"That's not building an industry, it's just building a company," scoffed one official with a commercial rocket supplier competing with SpaceX. But for European government officials concerned about the long-term viability of their Ariane rocket line, SpaceX has become a useful case study of one way to cut costs.

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Abingdon, England-based Reaction Engines' Skylon rocket would cost even more - some 10 billion euros over 10-12 years, according to Mark Hempsell, the company's director of future programs. The key component, which has been a focus of the company's work for years, is SABRE, the Synthetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine.

SABRE doubles as both a jet engine for suborbital flights and as a rocket engine to place satellites into orbit. The heart of the testing now under way is on the engine's precooler, which must transform air entering the engine at more than 1,000 degrees Celsius to minus 150 degrees Celsius in one one-hundredth of a second.

ESA has sent teams to monitor the precooler's development, in part with funding provided by the U.K. Space Agency. A third series of demonstrations of the precooler are scheduled for August.

British Science Minister David Willetts, referring to the Reaction Engines testing in a July 10 address here, said "the pace at which they're advancing illustrates the urgency of laying the appropriate groundwork now."

Willetts said that he would work with the British Department for Transport to modify national regulations to permit spaceplanes to operate in British airspace. He said the European Commission has agreed to pursue similar modifications with the European Air Safety Agency.

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I'd like to see Skylon fly. Just as long as they don't expect any tax contributions from me to help pay for it.

https://secure.wikim...on_(spacecraft)

I mean Skylon looks like a 21st Century Dan Dare spaceship! Now, that's something that you could imagine fighting the Mekon in.

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ESA and the UK may donate some seed monies (or already have), but if Skylon's SABRE dual-mode rocket engine works and is economical that will be money well spent because it would be a paradigm shift as great as going from prop-driven biplanes to modern fighters.

BTW: SABRE has a brother - Scimitar. Instead of the pre-cooler feeding supercooled oxygen to a dual-mode rocket engine it feeds a high-bypass turbofan jet. Scimitar would power A2, a hypersonic suborbital intercontinental airliner that could go Mach 5 or better. It would be as revolutionary as SABRE.

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ESA and the UK may donate some seed monies (or already have), but if Skylon's SABRE dual-mode rocket engine works and is economical that will be money well spent because it would be a paradigm shift as great as going from prop-driven biplanes to modern fighters.

Yes, it certainly seems to have that potential. I probably actually wouldn't mind if some of my tax went into it. Just as long as I can have a ride in it some day lol!

BTW: SABRE has a brother - Scimitar. Instead of the pre-cooler feeding supercooled oxygen to a dual-mode rocket engine it feeds a high-bypass turbofan jet. Scimitar would power A2, a hypersonic suborbital intercontinental airliner that could go Mach 5 or better. It would be as revolutionary as SABRE.

I think that suborbital airliners are inevitable. They may even be more economical to run. They say that you could quite easily see the curvature of the Earth from Concorde's cabin windows. The view from a suborbital liner window would be pretty stunning.

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