(Image credit goes to Reaction Engines Ltd)
Big news came out of England recently, which could revolutionize the Aerospace Industry all together. Reaction Engines Ltd, a British Aerospace company, has successfully tested elements of a revolutionary engine called SABRE (Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) under parameters of the European Space Agency.
This is big for REL, as they can now build a smaller scale version of a SABRE engine for demonstration and further prove that their engine works. In turn, this would help them develop their spaceplane (what happens when a spacecraft and an aircraft have a baby) called Skylon.
What makes Skylon so unique is that it will be the first vehicle of it’s kind to be entirely reusable after returning from space, being able to leave space the way it came in. It can also be able to take off from any conventional airport in the world.
This would extremely widdle down costs for deploying satellites in space, and could revolutionize the commercial aerospace industry as well, as a non-space faring passenger variant called an A2 is being developed using technology created from the SABRE engine.
Both vessels are claimed to be able to max out at Mach 5 about 3,840 MPH\6,150KM/H, which would make any location in the world accessible, with the longest flight being only four hours. For comparison, a Concorde, the fastest commercial jet in existance had a cruising speed of Mach 2 (2,179 KM/H\1,354 MPH)
Founder and Managing Director James Alan Bond praised the results saying,
“This is a big moment; it really is quite a big step forward in propulsion.”
But Skylon still isn’t ready to hit the tarmac just yet. According to a presentation given by Alan Bond last year, the Skylon won’t be ready until around 2021, provided the receive proper funding for their endeavour.
For a guide on how a SABRE engine works, you can read this article by REL here.
[Original Article Found Here]
SpaceGear 