Scientists unveil plans for a

[DocM]

Popular Science article on Skylon / SABRE

http://www.popsci.com/node/76945/?cmpid=enews091213&spPodID=020&spMailingID=5715263&spUserID=MTY0OTA2MTA2NDgS1&spJobID=336446322&spReportId=MzM2NDQ2MzIyS0

[IsItPluggedIn]

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[Shiranui]

The UK government needs to throw money at these guys.

[DocM]

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Works here. Hmmmm....

[IsItPluggedIn]

Works here. Hmmmm....

Balls it redirects me because im from Australia to the .au site which doesnt have the info. Just has info from 2012.

 

I hate when sites force the redirect on you. Complaint sent.  :angry:

[DocM]

A full dual-cycle (air breathing / vacuum) rocket engine on the test stand in ~2017.

The Skylon vehicle will be very similar to the space plane in the film 2001.

BBC article on UK funding: http://bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23332592

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2013/10/reaction-engines-expands-sabre-engine-project-to-finance-full-engine/

Reaction Engines expands research project to build full-sized air-breathing engine

The UK firm whose pre-cooler heat exchanger technology for an air breathing rocket engine was recently proven in tests to be able cool air from above 1,000 decrees Celcius to less than-120 degrees Celcius in steady state conditions, has decided to go all the way and make a full scale version of its Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE).

The decision represents an expansion of the ?240 million project to build the key elements for such an engine to which the UK government is funding ?60 million via ESA. The expanded ?360 million new project will now build a complete engine which it hopes to one day employ in its for its Skylon space plane design.

At the 80th anniversary celebration of the British Interplanetary Society, held in its founding city of Liverpool in October, Reaction Engines? Managing Director and the firm?s chief engine designer, Alan Bond, noted that the new project would produce a complete engine even though it has not yet been decided whether it would be of the newer SABRE 4 iteration or the earlier SABRE 3 version. With a Specific Impulse (Isp) of 2500 seconds at lift off and at 1,600 seconds at Mach 5, the liquid hydrogen/air burning engine would be between three and five times as propulsively efficient as a conventional rocket engine before it transitioned to that mode using liquid oxgyen as an oxidiser. Bond further declined to note the key technical differences between the two engine versions. Bond remained confident about raising the funding for the project even at its new higher level.

Bond also noted the work that the European aerospace firm Thales Alenia Space is doing in defining a transfer stage design to carry satellites from Skylon?s low Earth orbit to Geostationary Earth Orbit using a ?7 to 1 resonance? transfer orbit rendezvous technique. That is, the location of the perigee of the transfer stage?s orbit matches with the orbital location of Skylon every seven of Skylon?s orbits.

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