We’ve seen some related threads on this, but non directly about it for a while. Seems they’ve just got an endorsement from the ESA and now looking for $250 million in funding.
I’m quite surprised with the amount of interest and money being poured into private space by Virgin / SpaceX… Elon Musk, Paul Allen and others that these guys haven’t already got their funding.
Anyone got comments on the feasibility of their tech and the claims they make about the SABRE engine performance?
It seems pretty kosher. The main new innovation required was the atmospheric pre-cooling. That obstacle seems now to be, if not overcome, at least proven that the tech is capable of performing in the intended manner and the jet-rocket transition is expected to be less of an issue. There is still a long way to go though.
I’d be surprised if they don’t raise the funding. The carrot of true, reusable, single stage to orbit is a big one. Of course, now that private enterprise is continually refining a known technology there will be something of a cost/kg arms race and it will be interesting to see how that pans out. It may end up closer than the initial Skylon projections make out.
Of course from a personal point of view I say sod the cost. I want to see a proper space-plane, I still feel slightly cheated by the space shuttle.
The major cost with the space shuttle was that despite the goal for a 2-week turnaround, it essentially underwent a major refurbishing after each trip. In fact, one article I read said they would steal some parts from a just-returned shuttle to to get the next scheduled shuttle ready to use. All in all, very labour-intensive.
The real “cheap” would be an engine like a jet, where it runs for dozens of hours of airtime before needing significant maintenance, and hundreds of hours or more between major rebuilds. This promises to do something close, based on the article.
Yes, these guys have been at it a long time, from a defense point of view it also has numerous applications, I guess being British is part of the problem. If they were a US company with a plausible new engine design I guess they’d get DOD / DARPA funding pretty easily.
The $250 million they are looking for is the cost of 1 day of the war in afghanistan.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gNQ3JbWwd6t-PzkuECkRJvsAlNkA
250 million pounds not dollars. Closer to 400 million dollars.
They claim to have solved the problem of ice buildup in the pre-cooling phase. If they have, it probably leaves them with about 10,000 more significant problems to solve. And that’s just for the engine, not an entire spacecraft.
The ESA independent audit was apparently on the feasibility of the entire engine design, not just the heat-exchanger.
I hope they succeed. They are also are talking about a hypersonic passenger transport that will take you from Sydney to Brussels in 4 hours. Now, I realize that it’s a questionable financial model, but give us back our mach speed passenger aircraft!
Amen-for far too long we have been satisfied with piddly subsonic airliners-I feel the need for speed, baby!
I wonder how the in-flight security video on that will look like.
“In case of turbulence, please put your hands behind your head, put your head between your knees, brace with your elbows and kiss your ass goodbye. Thank you.”
Reaction Engines Folds After Funding Shortfall
Not sure if it the issue was on the business side, or the technical one (classic catch-22: need the funds to show the viability of the concept, but unless the concept can be demonstrated to bring in the funding it will never come to fruition). While the SSTO approach may no longer be competitive with the reusable stages now on the market, that precooler seemed to work and thus appeared to be a viable technology, one which could be applied just to in-atmosphere engines, such as their design concept for a Mach 5 airliner, the A-2. Various militaries would also be interested one would think.