Reaction Engines SABRE engine (Skylon Spaceplane)

[Archibald]

The supreme irony is that in 1989 BAe already screwed Alan Bond's team over the classified RB-545. Also Interim HOTOL. Hence 35 years later things would come full circle - damn.

 

[FighterJock]

So true Archibald so true.

 

[SteveO]

Awww… nuts! Sad news about Reaction Engines. Another Great British space flight dream in the bin.

Back when I started this thread I was a massive Skylon fanboy after reading about it in Spaceflight magazine. Then I actually got around to reading my big Space Shuttle book by Dennis R. Jenkins and realized it wasn’t going to be as straight forward as chucking money at it!

Then SpaceX and Falcon 9 happened!!!

 

[FighterJock]

That was exactly the same with me SteveO as to how I first saw anything about Skylon too through the BIS Spaceflight magazine and then onto the BIS Journal especially in the early years of its existence. I was somewhat of a fanboy as well I really wanted it to succeed where HOTOL failed but alas it was not to be.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Then SpaceX and Falcon 9 happened!!!

There you go, yup, likewise I reckon that’s that’s what nailed em.

 

[SteveO]

Yep, SpaceX and Falcon 9 was that, oh yeah!, moment when I realized making routine space flight easy was about science and engineering and not looking cool!

Saying that, watching a Falcon 9 land is about as cool as it comes

 

[Maro.Kyo]

There you go, yup, likewise I reckon that’s that’s what nailed em.

And not just REL/Skylone, but the whole SSTO dreams. Ony maybe in the distant future may we see serious SSTO efforts again... At least Stoke is doing something really cool.

 

[Dagger]

Already for many years REL only spoke about using Skylon to "fly to Sydney in 4 hours" or "fly to New York in 2 hours", not for SSTO.

In 2008 they came up with LAPCAT-A2, which looks very much like Skylon, and in January 2011 they even announced that it could fly "within the next 15 years".
That should then be before the end of next year, but of course nothing happened since 2011. See attachments.
LAPCAT has been mentioned before in this topic in those years.

Falcon 9 did not kill REL, their total lack of any achievements did.

 

[SteveO]

An old Reaction Engines paper from when Skylon was still the main event

A DESIGN FOR AN ORBITAL ASSEMBLY FACILITY FOR COMPLEX MISSIONS

 

[SteveO]

A few months ago Reaction Engines released issue 1 of a 52 page Skylon User Manual for prospective clients! You can download it from http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/downloads/SKYLON_User_ Manual_rev1[3].pdf.

Link no longer works unsurprisingly so I’ve attached the Skylon Users Manual

SpaceX did one for the Falcon 9 too, if only RE had their success! If only horizontal SSTO was easier

 

[Archibald]

There were two users manual released: one for the 275 tons Skylon C2, and another for the 325 tons D1. I have both of them on my HD, plus a ton of documents "Skylon for -" (space stations, Moon, Mars, upper stages, and other stuff).

 

[FighterJock]

That I would love to see Archibald.

 

[SteveO]

Yes, please share what you have with us Archibald! I remember some of those but failed to save them!

 

[Owens Z]

There were two users manual released: one for the 275 tons Skylon C2, and another for the 325 tons D1. I have both of them on my HD, plus a ton of documents "Skylon for -" (space stations, Moon, Mars, upper stages, and other stuff).

SteveO has posted the later version of the Skylon user's manual, on configuration D1. Here (see attached PDF) is the earlier version that I have in my records, on configuration C2, if anybody is interested.

 

[Archibald]

Ok I know where to find that I'll post them tomorrow.

 

[Rhinocrates]

RE's Troy study for a mission to Mars from... a while ago.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqqnctOCMvs

 

[Archibald]

And, as promised - here we go. Twenty files, max that can be attached to a post. More to come in the next message.

Note that the file called 6844338 is one of the Skylon user manual, sorry if it has already posted elsewhere with a different name.
It is the first manual, for the C-2 variant.

 

[Archibald]

Second part. Twelve more files. SKYLON_Users_Manual_Rev_2.1 is the other one: the D-1 variant.

 

[FighterJock]

Wow, that is a lot of reading Archibald thanks for posting.

 

[Archibald]

I did the same thing with ULA own technical library (ACES, DTAL horizontal lander, EELV evolutions). Dowloaded everything of interest like a manic squirrel storing nuts for winter.

 

[SteveO]

Archibald, thank you so much for sharing those with us. Great collection!

 

[SteveO]

I think for me it was Adrian Mann’s artwork that really made me want Skylon to succeed. His lovely crisp CGI just looked right and made me forget about the laws of physics
His website -

Bisbos.com :: Spacecraft : REL : SKYLON

 

[SteveO]

It’s interesting to compare the rocket plumes on the original Skylon mission animation and Hazegrayart’s more recent go at it!

View: https://youtu.be/DZp2p_rNhlI?si=_3xffFHRIbNl7Iy1

View: https://youtu.be/mOqInOe5g8k?si=RKbi7JeP6dQe8hMy

 

[red admiral]

It’s interesting to compare the rocket plumes on the original Skylon mission animation and Hazegrayart’s more recent go at it!

They look cool, but aren't simulations of what the plume actually does. At altitude with lower pressure then it looks more like the attached. Which may cause issues for the aft fuselage structure and thin, brittle TPS covering it...

 

[fightingirish]

How Britain's Air Breathing Rocket Engine Would Have Worked... If The Builder Hadn't Gone Bankrupt.
Reaction Engines had been working on an innovative engine design named SABRE, this was intended to operate as an air breathing engine up to about mach 5 and then switch to a pure rocket engine cycle. The ultimate goal was to build an aircraft named 'Skyline' which could fly all the way to orbit without dropping stages, but the company was first and foremost focussed on demonstrating the engine design, and in particular, the pre-cooler which would be required to chill the incoming air down to usable temperatures so it could be compressed and then used to burn hydrogen in a rocket engine. [...]

Video:

View: https://youtu.be/4YLg8X0BAL0?si=d80Tq6TIxXR3p3Ch

Link:

https://youtu.be/4YLg8X0BAL0?si=d80Tq6TIxXR3p3Ch

 

[Owens Z]

My post # 617 in this thread three weeks ago got several likes (thank you), but nobody here has been able to answer the question therein about whether or not the planned British test program (to add a Reaction Engines' helium precooler in front of an EJ200 jet engine as used in the Eurofighter Typhoon) actually occurred in 2019-21. I am now doubtful that it ever did, even though the test appears to have already been fully funded. I re-read my sources. Craig Hoyle wrote the article "EJ200 trial to accelerate UK hypersonics research" in the 31 July 2019 issue of Flight International. Aviation Week's London correspondent Tony Osborne wrote "Precooler Technology Could Bring Advantages to Fighter Engines" (AWST 19 August 2019), which followed up from his colleague Guy Norris's "Positive Reaction (Reaction Engines' Pre-Cooler Passes Mach 3.3 Test [in Colorado])" (AWST 22 April 2019). I have emailed queries about the planned test program directly to Mr Hoyle and Mr Osborne, and await their response—or better yet, an answer included in an upcoming informative article by one or both of them about the life and death of Reaction Engines.

I completely agree (in fact ever since the 1990's when I learned of Skylon) with what the famed Henry Spencer wrote on a newsgroup recently, that it would have been wiser for Reaction Ltd to use its constrained funds to build "a crude-and-heavy test aircraft to put the engine through its paces, running out of fuel and oxidizer just after the shift to rocket mode... [Reaction] needed to get something flying without spending several billion dollars first... nobody was ever going to give them billions on the strength of paper studies. They spent far too long trying to sell that impossible fantasy."

Still, the end of Reaction Engines is a loss for space achievement. Maybe whomever inherits the defunct company's intellectual property will make something of it.

 

[FighterJock]

Let's wait and see Owens Z, It would be such a waste to see all the technology just disappear and not be used for something else.

 

[TomcatViP]

Notice on the doc shared by @Archibald that with all the funding amassed across all those years, they hadn't bothered to source a proper CAD system internally. When I see aerospace presentation done under Autocad lite or something equivalent and money only spent for some cool animations, renders and quick short accessory projects (here we see Solidworks or Creo used by some contractor), it just makes me wonder how people could have invested in this.
How serious can it be? It just like a Chef in a gourmet restaurant that would have only plastic dinning toys as cooking utensils.

 

[Nicknick]

I would definately concider Creo as a proper CAD system. I started with Catia 4 and hated Proe-E (the old name for Creo) in the beginning because it was terrible user unfriendly and required way to many clicks for everything. But it matured over the years and become much better. It is the most commonly used CAD program for complex mashinery (especially combustion engine design) and its logic reference system is way better than everything I've seen in Solid works. Despite I'm often getting upset from Creo failures (not doing what it supposed to do) I learned that other programs are by far worse.

Catia is very strong for complex surface modeling and so it is often used in aerospace and design applications. In the automtive world, it is quite common to do the body work with Catia and the powertrain with Creo.

Siemens NX (based on Ideas) has it's strong sides in interconnecting with CNC mashine programing, SAP and many other stuff.

 

[TomcatViP]

@Nicknick : Creo is definitively a proper CAD system

Seems something didn't go through with my post. I will rephrase it later on. Sorry for the induced confusion.

 

[Nicknick]

I should have read your posting a secong time...

 

[SteveO]

I wonder if the SABRE engine effect could have been demonstrated with a simplified pressure fed engine without turbo-machinery?

Perhaps a helium tank pressurizing the hydrogen and oxygen tank could have switched over to the heat exchanger in a air intake when the vehicle got up to speed?

I guess this set up would work best in a conventional vertical launch attitude?

 

[red admiral]

I completely agree (in fact ever since the 1990's when I learned of Skylon) with what the famed Henry Spencer wrote on a newsgroup recently, that it would have been wiser for Reaction Ltd to use its constrained funds to build "a crude-and-heavy test aircraft to put the engine through its paces, running out of fuel and oxidizer just after the shift to rocket mode... [Reaction] needed to get something flying without spending several billion dollars first...

NB: they never got to having an engine, only some bits of an engine. Although they were focusing on the new, critical technology pieces. But there's still a lot of engineering (few hundred million likely) to do the boring stuff like shafts, seals, pumps etc. to get to a ground running engine

 

[Owens Z]

NB: they never got to having an engine, only some bits of an engine. Although they were focusing on the new, critical technology pieces. But there's still a lot of engineering (few hundred million likely) to do the boring stuff like shafts, seals, pumps etc. to get to a ground running engine

Yes, in its 35-year lifetime Reaction Engines Ltd never did the needed hard work to get an actual full jet/rocket engine (not just a precooler) running, including the boring bits that are nevertheless required as red admiral points out. Even an overweight and non-space-worthy engine such as mentioned by Henry Spencer, if successfully and publicly flown on a nattily-painted test plane a few times, might have attracted the necessary big money to develop and build the Skylon SSTO. Too late now. But maybe Reaction's mistakes will be valuable lessons for others.

 

[publiusr]

Boostback is what finally staked this vampire…

 

[Owens Z]

Boostback is what finally staked this vampire...

Your comment here is unclear to me, Publiusr. If I am guessing correctly, you contend that SpaceX's now-routine demonstration of boostback to land (at least some stages of) its launch vehicles back at the launch site or on a barge, thus facilitating their repeated reuse, makes a future SSTO spaceplane superfluous, with an implied good riddance. Is that right?

 

[publiusr]

No "good riddance" implied...

Orion III spoiled us...well...we got 9/11 instead of a space odyssey in 2001.

I should have been into girls and cars in my youth like most normal people. I remember--not that long ago--a book released in 1980 called BREAKTHROUGHS that read like it was a prediction of the singularity--two decades before that word referred to anything besides a collapsar.

It read like Kurzweil's hype..about miracle cures just around the corner...my parents were always sickly --and that book got my hopes up.

Instead--I lost my parents in my 30s.

The winged spaceplane concept.....the loveliest of all sirens--with the sweetest voice--and the sharpest claws.

I don't think Sanger and Bredt invented the Silverbird after all.

I think it was Umberto Eco and Lord Dunsany.

SABRE, and Star Raker only fly in the airspace over Sona-Nyl.

 

[martinbayer]

I don't think Sanger and Bredt invented the Silverbird after all.

I think it was Umberto Eco and Lord Dunsany.

SABRE, and Star Raker only fly in the airspace over Sona-Nyl.

Could you elaborate a little further?

 

[publiusr]

Some things work better in the land of fiction than reality...

Getting ones hopes up--just to see them dashed... maybe an internet billionaire will bail the Skylon folks out--though it seems late.

I'm sorry--just in one of my dismal moods.

 

[Calum Douglas]

I would definately concider Creo as a proper CAD system. I started with Catia 4 and hated Proe-E (the old name for Creo) in the beginning because it was terrible user unfriendly and required way to many clicks for everything. But it matured over the years and become much better. It is the most commonly used CAD program for complex mashinery (especially combustion engine design) and its logic reference system is way better than everything I've seen in Solid works. Despite I'm often getting upset from Creo failures (not doing what it supposed to do) I learned that other programs are by far worse.

Catia is very strong for complex surface modeling and so it is often used in aerospace and design applications. In the automtive world, it is quite common to do the body work with Catia and the powertrain with Creo.

Siemens NX (based on Ideas) has it's strong sides in interconnecting with CNC mashine programing, SAP and many other stuff.

I`ve never worked anywhere doing combustion engine fundamental design which used Creo, and I`ve worked at a lot of engine design departments.

All CAD systems are basically flawed and annoying, and the arguments endless, but I would say virtually every high level engine design dept is using either NX or CATIA. CATIA has been losing quite a bit of marketspace to NX in the last few years, partially because its insanely expensive, but also because nobody wants the cloud based V6 version (which is now called "3D experience" for reasons nobody knows).

Solidworks is amazingly easy and very capable, but falls over on stability and despite the PR claims, a total inability to satisfactorally work with very large assemblies or extremely complex single parts. I would say it has the large market share for what we`d call mid-range engineering firms.

As far as I can tell Creo basically got no significant useful upgrades or serious feature expansion in the last 10 years and almost all current users of it are pretty much using it for some historical product continuity reasons, rather than because its what you`d choose out of the box today were you starting from zero.

Catia V5 is the best CAD system I`ve ever used, its ability to work with gigantic parts and assemblies in real time on even moderately capable PC`s is unbelievable, I have no idea how it does it. I`d use it now, but I dont have £100,000 for V5 with all the toolbars, so I use NX, which is about 2/3 as good for 15x less money.