Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
UK company Reaction Engines has tested its innovative precooler at airflow temperature conditions equivalent to Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. This achievement marks a significant milestone in its ESA-supported development of the air-breathing SABRE engine, paving the way for a revolution in space access and hypersonic flight.
The precooler heat exchanger is an essential SABRE element that cools the hot airstream generated by air entering the engine intake at hypersonic speed.
"This is not only an excellent achievement in its own right but one important step closer to demonstrating the feasibility of the entire SABRE engine concept," said Mark Ford, heading ESA's Propulsion Engineering section.
The Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) is uniquely designed to scoop up atmospheric air during the initial part of its ascent to space at up to five times the speed of sound. At about 25 km it would then switch to pure rocket mode for its final climb to orbit.
In future SABRE could serve as the basis of a reusable launch vehicle that operates like an aircraft. Because the initial flight to Mach 5 uses the atmospheric air as one propellant it would carry much less heavy liquid oxygen on board. Such a system could deliver the same payload to orbit with a vehicle half the mass of current launchers, potentially offering a large reduction in cost and a higher launch rate.
Related Stories
Russia successfully tests new hypersonic Tsirkon missile:
Russia says it has successfully tested a new hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile in a move hailed by President Vladimir Putin as a "great event" for the country.
The military said on Wednesday that the Tsirkon missile was fired from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate in the White Sea on Tuesday morning in the Russian Arctic and successfully hit its target.
Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian military's General Staff, told Putin – who turned 68 on Wednesday – that it was the first time the missile had successfully struck a target at sea.
"The tasks of the launch were carried out. The test-fire was successful," he told Putin. Gerasimov said the missile hit its target 450 kilometres (280 miles) away in the Barents Sea and reached a speed of Mach 8 – eight times the speed of sound.
China and America have also been developing hypersonic missiles.
Previously:
US Hails New Milestone in Development of Hypersonic Weapons
Russia Takes Lead by Deploying Hypersonic Nuclear Warheads First
Air-Breathing Engine Precooler Achieves Record-Breaking Mach 5 Performance
Putin Hails Successful Test Of Russia's New Hypersonic Missile
China Tests Hypersonic Aircraft "Starry Sky-2"
General: U.S. Has No Defense Against "Hypersonic Weapons"
Hypersonic Cruise Missile Scores USD$175m DARPA Cash
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday October 24 2019, @10:31AM (5 children)
SABRE/Skylon [wikipedia.org] is a cool concept but that won't be enough to compete with Starship, unless its use is mandated by UK/EU. It looks like test flights are planned for 2025.
Dream Chaser [wikipedia.org] is more interesting right now. That has been selected to resupply the ISS, [soylentnews.org] and there has been talk of using it for another Hubble servicing mission [universetoday.com].
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(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday October 24 2019, @11:28AM (1 child)
> SABRE/Skylon [wikipedia.org] is a cool concept but that won't be enough to compete with Starship, unless its use is mandated by UK/EU. It looks like test flights are planned for 2025.
I guess it depends - presumably skylon uses air breaking whereas starship uses rocket breaking. Which is cheaper? Air breaking means carrying wings into orbit, rocket breaking means carrying fuel into orbit. If large-scale commercial space flight is serious, one should also factor in effect of pollution of the various fuels. Maybe you know the answer already?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday October 24 2019, @12:40PM
Starship uses a "skydiver fall" approach [youtube.com] (20m10s) when re-entering an atmosphere, and then uses a propulsive landing. Applicable to Earth or Mars, but not the Moon.
Methalox [wikipedia.org] *could* be created "carbon neutral" [twitter.com] at the launch site using renewable energy (likely Tesla solar + batteries), taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. This is a necessary approach if you want to create propellant on the surface of Mars.
According to Wikipedia, Skylon could take 15-17 tons to LEO. Looks like the payload bay volume is planned at 235.24 m3 (13 meter long cylinder, 4.8 meters diameter).
Starship is going for 100-150 tons to LEO, with the ability to return with up to 50 tons [arstechnica.com]. Main cargo volume will be over 1,000 m3, with a 9 meter diameter allowing for bigger payloads, and an option to add unpressurized aft cargo next to the engines (~88 m3).
Cost to launch remains to be seen, but it should be very low in both cases.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:24PM
It's the pre-cooler design that is interesting, hydrogen has an auto-ignition temperature around 500 °C in air. Using cryo-hydrogen to rapidly cool air down from 1000 °C isn't an intuitive solution. It's rocket science or something.
(Score: 4, Informative) by richtopia on Thursday October 24 2019, @03:55PM (1 child)
This could also be stepping stone tech, or used in other applications. I know Elon wants to also compete in suborbital transportation with SpaceX, and I suspect that an air-breathing engine like SABRE could have a competitive advantage over traditional rockets for this type of application. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-orbital_spaceflight#Sub-orbital_transportation [wikipedia.org]
No matter what technology becomes dominate, more players keep us innovating.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday October 24 2019, @08:18PM
I guess an air-breathing Raptor hybrid engine is possible?
After that, air-breathing nuclear thermal [nextbigfuture.com].
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:42PM
The real application is better weapons.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @02:57PM
That's just wrong. Gender appropriation is never right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @08:46PM
Isn't it too risky to allow a preschooler to move at those speeds?