I think F9R's success so far, on balance, gives Skylon a better shot than it otherwise would.
John Scott-Scott, one of the three founders of Reaction Engines, passed away in the early hours of Saturday 12th December 2015. This marked the passing of a truly remarkable aerospace engineer. Thanks in no small part to John’s tireless work, Reaction Engines now enjoys recognition by both Government and Industry through strong partnerships with BAE Systems, and the UK and European Space Agencies. This success is a tribute to John, his incredible abilities and his perseverance.
1] Presumably Skylon's SABRE's would need some sort of sparkler to safely burn any hydrogen that's released during startup and/or aborted startup.
Given that we think the Skylon will be fueled while on the runway,
it will need to be positioned precisely over the fueling stations, and so the SABRE's could line up with fixed sparklers built at the end of the runway?
2] For static fire, I suppose you would have to build hard points into the SABRE's that mate to a fixed structure at the end of the runway. I doubt the runway material could endure the plume from a full duration test, including transition to rocket mode, so I think you'd need to excavate a large volume to accommodate this. (Just make sure a landing Skylon doesn't overshoot and nosedive into it...)
There's no mention of long duration static fire, just that full-thrust will be verified before committing to launch - when brakes are released. Evidently they're good brakes
Hopefully it will lay to rest some of the "It's not possible to reuse a launch vehicle without months and millions spent on refurbishment" doubts some have, but perhaps we have to wait until someone manages to reuse a second stage.
Once fully reusable launch vehicles have been achieved, how long will expendables be allowed to continue - with viable alternatives, are people going to carry on accepting the necessity of falling COPVs? (or will they be fine, until something important is hit by one, at which point it will be an unacceptable risk that must never be allowed again?)
Yes, I agree with you. Also, if BAE is really mainly interested in defense, they would not oppose a partnership with different companies which are not their direct competitors in the defense sector. This, of course, excludes LM and therefore ULA; but they are not the only players in town.
Quote from: francesco nicoli on 01/02/2016 09:07 amYes, I agree with you. Also, if BAE is really mainly interested in defense, they would not oppose a partnership with different companies which are not their direct competitors in the defense sector. This, of course, excludes LM and therefore ULA; but they are not the only players in town.For some time now it's looked like Finance is the key issue for moving SABRESkylon forward.REL is not an aircraft builder but wants to get (a kind of) an aircraft built so it can be a sub contractor to the builder.This makes raising funding for the current generation of work very tricky, despite (as REL point out) 94 countries having a national space agency, along with (as 2015) 1800 billionaires.These facts suggest there is a substantial group of people and organizations who want (or could afford) a part or all of a fully reusable (and re saleable) system that could give them on demand access to LEO and (if wanted) GEO.The challenge is how to get those organizations to legally commit to buying a system that does not yet exist to be manufactured by an organization that also does not exist yet. This has certainly been done in the past for large capital goods like mainframe computers and aircraft and has been critical in allowing the companies to approach banks for funding for the development.The novel aspects of this would be a)REL is acting as an "agent" for an organization that has not been formed yet. Indeed the existence of the commitments would encourage its formation to begin with. b)There have to be safeguards on cost and schedule so no (expected) purchase would have an unlimited price to pay at an indefinite time in the future. This suggests inflation and time clauses. If a consortium can't do it in the time and the maximum price then the organization has to buy nothing, although it if wants one after that it would then have to pay open market price for it (assumed Skylon was developed eventually). Enough such signings would give REL a pool of confirmed sales the consortium would have at it's disposal provided it can deliver Skylon within the limit and make an adequate profit at the contract price at the time of delivery. That in turn gives incentives to get companies to join the consortium (based on their assessment of REL and their own abilities to deliver their parts) and that in turn gives funding organizations confidence to commit funds (based on their assessment of the consortium members financial and implementation track records). It's a weird idea that a company (REL) creates such an asset (a pool of commitments) to transfer to another company that does not yet exist yet to facilitate its future growth. "Bootstrap" financing of both the consortium and the banks ?The problem is it's a business solution and while I have no doubts about REL's technical competence I'm not sure they have anyone who's raised funds on this sort of scale in a commercial (IE from banks, not direct government funding, as in defense projects) environment.
No worries! The guys who handle the excellent PR for REL are the ones handling the direct business work... Oh... wait...
Seriously it's scary at times when you really think about RELs position and the fact they've gotten as far as they have. Ahh well, it's another year so here comes 12 more months of Opportunity! (And Spirit, and opportunity even but this is about Skylon )Randy
Quote from: http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/press_release/2015-12-28_Chris_Allam_Appointment_FINAL.pdfThe Board of Reaction Engines Ltd is pleased to announce the appointment of Chris Allam, Engineering Director at BAE Systems, as a Director of the Company. His appointment is part of the strategic investment and working partner relationship BAE Systems has entered into with Reaction Engines and he will co-ordinate BAE Systems’ collaboration on Reaction Engines’ development of its SABRE™ engine.[...]Previous roles within BAE Systems include Senior Vice President of F-35 Lightning II (2011), Managing Director of Autonomous Systems and Future Capability (2008), and Project Director for Unmanned Air Vehicles within BAE Systems’ Future Systems division (2006)So, some experience with developing new technologies?
The Board of Reaction Engines Ltd is pleased to announce the appointment of Chris Allam, Engineering Director at BAE Systems, as a Director of the Company. His appointment is part of the strategic investment and working partner relationship BAE Systems has entered into with Reaction Engines and he will co-ordinate BAE Systems’ collaboration on Reaction Engines’ development of its SABRE™ engine.[...]Previous roles within BAE Systems include Senior Vice President of F-35 Lightning II (2011), Managing Director of Autonomous Systems and Future Capability (2008), and Project Director for Unmanned Air Vehicles within BAE Systems’ Future Systems division (2006)
Quote from: JCRM on 01/10/2016 09:51 pmQuote from: http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/press_release/2015-12-28_Chris_Allam_Appointment_FINAL.pdfThe Board of Reaction Engines Ltd is pleased to announce the appointment of Chris Allam, Engineering Director at BAE Systems, as a Director of the Company. His appointment is part of the strategic investment and working partner relationship BAE Systems has entered into with Reaction Engines and he will co-ordinate BAE Systems’ collaboration on Reaction Engines’ development of its SABRE engine.[...]Previous roles within BAE Systems include Senior Vice President of F-35 Lightning II (2011), Managing Director of Autonomous Systems and Future Capability (2008), and Project Director for Unmanned Air Vehicles within BAE Systems’ Future Systems division (2006)So, some experience with developing new technologies?He's clearly part of the price for the BAe investment. His resume looks like he's some experience with UAV's which is obviously important but BAe's history with in house developed UAV's has not been impressive (Watchkeeper, anyone?)As for the F35 the last estimate I saw was it was around 7 years late and $168 billion over budget. IE Skylon could be built for about 8% of the cost overrun on the programme. That makes him quite skilled at telling governments why they are not getting what they wanted for the price they wanted it at the time they expected it (and BTW could we have some more money please).Is this the skillset you need for raising funds in a commercial background? Probably not. Does that mean REL are going to go 100% government funding? I hope not REL have shown they are very smart engineers. I just hope their staff selection skills are as well developed.
Quote from: http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/press_release/2015-12-28_Chris_Allam_Appointment_FINAL.pdfThe Board of Reaction Engines Ltd is pleased to announce the appointment of Chris Allam, Engineering Director at BAE Systems, as a Director of the Company. His appointment is part of the strategic investment and working partner relationship BAE Systems has entered into with Reaction Engines and he will co-ordinate BAE Systems’ collaboration on Reaction Engines’ development of its SABRE engine.[...]Previous roles within BAE Systems include Senior Vice President of F-35 Lightning II (2011), Managing Director of Autonomous Systems and Future Capability (2008), and Project Director for Unmanned Air Vehicles within BAE Systems’ Future Systems division (2006)So, some experience with developing new technologies?
The Board of Reaction Engines Ltd is pleased to announce the appointment of Chris Allam, Engineering Director at BAE Systems, as a Director of the Company. His appointment is part of the strategic investment and working partner relationship BAE Systems has entered into with Reaction Engines and he will co-ordinate BAE Systems’ collaboration on Reaction Engines’ development of its SABRE engine.[...]Previous roles within BAE Systems include Senior Vice President of F-35 Lightning II (2011), Managing Director of Autonomous Systems and Future Capability (2008), and Project Director for Unmanned Air Vehicles within BAE Systems’ Future Systems division (2006)
So are you blaming BAE for the issues with the F-35 program because to me that's quite clearly very little to do with them.
Also it is rather past history being as the program is now on track.
As for the comments about UAVs, again though it maybe only a technology demonstrator I would say their experience with delivering the Taranis is far more applicable here than the Watchkeeper program.
In fact I find the whole of your commentary here to be pretty unwarranted and little to do with the topic at hand.
John, you may be looking at this the wrong way I think Going over his resume presented again:"Previous roles within BAE Systems include Senior Vice President of F-35 Lightning II (2011), Managing Director of Autonomous Systems and Future Capability (2008), and Project Director for Unmanned Air Vehicles within BAE Systems’ Future Systems division (2006)"I suspect REL/BAE are more interested in his experience with automated flight systems and "future capability/systems" than his overall experience with the F-35. (Though to be honest, one of the criteria for the on-board systems of the F-35 is fully automated take-offs and landing capability and supposedly automated refueling capability)Considering that the Skylon is supposed to operate autonomously as a UAV for most operations I suspect "that" is the reasoning behind the appointment AND relationship with BAE.I fully expect that this is also in-line with RELs attempts to get the government more interested in their work and to help secure funding both government and private.Randy
I suspect you're on the right track with your final paragraph. The chance of this project getting off the ground without some kind of governmental financial support has looked increasingly slim to me as time has gone on.
Considering that the Skylon is supposed to operate autonomously as a UAV for most operations I suspect "that" is the reasoning behind the appointment AND relationship with BAE.