Futuristic Space Plane Concept Moves Closer to Reality

ScienceRocks · Jul 27, 2012

Futuristic Space Plane Concept Moves Closer to Reality
Futuristic Space Plane Concept Moves Closer to Reality | Skylon | Space.com

Rob Coppinger, SPACE.com contributor

Date: 27 July 2012 Time: 06:51 AM ET

The SKYLON concept vehicle consists of a slender fuselage containing propellant tankage and payload bay, with delta wings attached midway along the fuselage carrying the SABRE engines in axisymmetric nacelles on the wingtips. The vehicle takes off and lands horizontally on its own undercarriage.

A giant space plane that doubles as a supersonic jet is closer than ever to becoming a reality.

Skylon is a privately funded, single-stage-to-orbit vehicle designed to take off and land from a runway, delivering up to 33,000-pounds (15,000 kilograms) into orbit. That payload could be a satellite or crew module, its makers say. Under development by Abingdon, England-based aerospace company Reaction Engines Ltd., Skylon's progress has interested the European Space Agency, and the small U.K. firm has revealed to SPACE.com its latest progress.

"We are now planning the next phase of development and raising the financing for it," Mark Hempsell, the company's future programs director, told SPACE.com.

Progress on the Skylon space plane's heat shield, superstructure, aerodynamics, avionics and critical rocket engine technologies is expected to help the European Space Agency compare the unpiloted reusable spacecraft's business case with expendable launch vehicles next year. [Gallery: Concept Images of the Skylon Space Plane]

The next phase

Skylon is a space plane concept with a slender fuselage that has delta wings attached midway. On the wings' tips is the Synthetic Air Breathing Engine, or SABRE.

The "next phase" Hempsell refers to will involve building a SABRE engine and test-flying it. But building an engine will require a consortium, and Reaction Engines is now looking for partners. The firm has successfully tested a SABRE engine rocket nozzle, called Expansion/Deflection, to improve thrust, with the help of University of Bristol engineers. Its results have now been independently verified by the ESA.

Another key SABRE technology is the heat exchanger, which cools the incoming air to feed it to the engine that burns it with onboard hydrogen. In the thicker lower atmosphere the air entering the engine will be hotter than 1,830 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius). This air needs to be cooled or the engine overheats.

The air will be cooled to a cryogenic minus 238 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 150 degrees Celsius) in one one-hundredth of a second. However, once the space plane enters rocket mode above the useful atmosphere, the hydrogen will be burned with onboard liquid oxygen.
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Now this will make Space travel from the surface to orbit much easier.

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Futuristic Space Plane Concept Moves Closer to Reality

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