Reaction Engines Ltd @ReactionEngines 30m30 minutes agoLast few hours before a major announcement - The team can't wait to let you know what we've been working on. #space #hypersonics
4 May 2017Work began today on building the UK’s latest rocket engine test facility, designed for firing the core engine of the ESA-backed SABRE propulsion system within three years.The Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine is uniquely designed to scoop up atmospheric air during the early part of its flight to orbit. This slashes the need for the vehicle to carry bulky onboard oxygen for this part of the ascent, before switching to rocket mode drawing on internal propellants for its final climb to space.Such engines have the potential to revolutionise space launches, powering vehicles that can take off and land like aircraft.Capable of airbreathing flight up to five times the speed of sound, they could also lead to hypersonic air travel.UK company Reaction Engines Ltd has been working on the engine for many years, with ESA playing an important technical management role since 2008.Today, ground was broken on the new test facility at Westcott Venture Park in the UK, an historic site for rocket research over the past seven decades. Engines for the Blue Streak and Black Arrow rockets were tested there, for example.“The opening of this new test facility marks an historic moment for the European aerospace industry and for the UK research and development in rocket propulsion,” remarked Franco Ongaro, ESA Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality.“This facility enables the ground test of the engine cycle, opening the way to the first test flights, and to a new era. “ESA is proud of this partnership with industry and the UK Space Agency, to which we bring our technical competence, which has supported the development to this stage, and we are confident, to its future flight success.”ESA has invested €10 million in SABRE, joining £50 million from the UK Space Agency.ESA independently reviewed the engine’s viability in 2010, opening the way to UK government investment. Reaction Engines Ltd has subsequently received private investment from BAE Systems, focused on accelerating development.To allow the engine to use the superfast onrushing airstream as oxidiser, the air must be cooled from 1000°C to –150°C within just a hundredth of second, at the same time avoiding the formation of dangerous ice.In 2012 ESA oversaw testing of the prototype ‘precooler’ required to cool the air, followed by research and development projects covering other elements such as the novel rocket nozzles, air intake design and thrust chamber cooling.
Quote Reaction Engines Ltd @ReactionEngines 30m30 minutes agoLast few hours before a major announcement - The team can't wait to let you know what we've been working on. #space #hypersonicshttps://twitter.com/ReactionEngines/status/860053182755426305I'm guessing the tweeted picture (attached) is a clue?
Reaction Engines Ltd @ReactionEngines 7m7 minutes ago#SABRETF1 is a unique facility to test the revolutionary SABRE engine. Next generation #space access and hypersonics #maythefourthbewithyou
Reaction Engines Ltd @ReactionEngines 2m2 minutes ago#SABRETF1 will have a control room, a new workshop, assembly and office area alongside the test facility
Reaction Engines Ltd @ReactionEngines 34m34 minutes agoEngine firing noise will be kept down with a custom water based silencer at #SABRETF1
VIPs beginning to arrive for groundbreaking at the home of the next big leap in #aviation and #space Westcott #SABRETF1 test site
Reaction Engines is proud to announce ground is now broken on our multi-£M #SABRETF1 core engine test facility @WestcottVP
Quote from: FutureSpaceTourist on 05/04/2017 09:19 amI'm guessing the tweeted picture (attached) is a clue?Intriguing. It's a constant diameter cylinder and the file name is "heater." I'm guessing it's the first section of the ground scale test engine.
I'm guessing the tweeted picture (attached) is a clue?
The advantage of scaling back ambitions in the near term, Mr Thomas says, is that this market can be accessed more quickly and the initial costs of development are significantly lower.Now capable of being used in modular scaleable configurations, the technology can also be applied to a greater range of sectors to help generate revenue earlier.“Single stage to orbit, full re-usable systems are the ideal state, the Holy Grail,” he says from the company’s headquarters at the Culham Science Centre near Abingdon. “But there has to be something between the two. Single stage to orbit is still on the road map.“But we have pushed the horizon out slightly further, partly to enable us to exploit these earlier opportunities that we have seen through dialogue with government and industry.”
