UK government invests £60m in rocket engine development
Reaction Engines has received £60m in government funding to continue the development of its SABRE rocket engine, a technology expected to lead to fully reusable single-stage space launchers.
Identified as a high priority project by the treasury in June 2013, SABRE (Synergistic Air Breathing Rocket Engine) will significantly reduce the cost of accessing space by greatly reducing the amount of onboard oxidizer required for propulsion.
Instead, the engine is designed to extract the oxygen it needs for low atmosphere flight from air. Reaching Mach 5 at 26,000 feet, a SABRE engine could then switch to full rocket mode to reach orbit, using on-board fuel supplies.
This advantage would enable a vehicle using SABRE engines to fly lighter from the outset and to make a single leap to orbit, rather than using and dumping propellant stages on the ascent.
This would pave the way for a new generation of spaceplanes which would be lighter, reusable and able to take off and launch from conventional airport runways. Formed in 1989, Reaction Engines’ concept for an 84m-long, unpiloted vehicle called Skylon would be one such spaceplane.
Register now to continue reading
Thanks for visiting The Engineer. You’ve now reached your monthly limit of news stories. Register for free to unlock unlimited access to all of our news coverage, as well as premium content including opinion, in-depth features and special reports.
Benefits of registering
-
In-depth insights and coverage of key emerging trends
-
Unrestricted access to special reports throughout the year
-
Daily technology news delivered straight to your inbox
Experts speculate over cause of Iberian power outages
The EU and UK will be moving towards using Grid Forming inverters with Energy Storage that has an inherent ability to act as a source of Infinite...