Skylon
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Skylon
I'm possibly a bit behind the curve here but just seen a story in the Times, announcing that "el taxpayer" in the form of the Government is awarding a £60 million grant for the Reaction Engines Skylon project;
Reaction Engines Ltd - Space Access: SKYLON
Seems we still have a bit of cash to throw at new aerospace projects. Looking at the company web site there are lots of civilian applications mentioned. Has anyone any idea of potential Military applications for this project ?
Smudge
Reaction Engines Ltd - Space Access: SKYLON
Seems we still have a bit of cash to throw at new aerospace projects. Looking at the company web site there are lots of civilian applications mentioned. Has anyone any idea of potential Military applications for this project ?
Smudge
Nemo Me Impune Lacessit
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Surprised they can use the name Skylon, back in the early fifties there was a Skylon at the Festival of Britain, on the South Bank, don't think it had any useful purpose at the time, (unless it was connected to GCHQ!), possibly copyrights expire after a certain time?
I've no special knowledge of Skylon or military applications but I have read up on it quite a lot:
- The Skylon vehicle is optimised for a particular purpose - dropping stuff off in low earth orbit cheaply. If that has a military use then you have an answer. It's not a bomber.
- The payload can be attached to a kind of tug that pushes it into geostationary orbit then comes down and is retrieved by Skylon. The tug can be reused on some number of flights so the overall effort is still cheap.
- A civil airliner version of the engine technology has been studied (see Lapcat A2 - Reaction Engines Ltd - LAPCAT A2). I can imagine this being turned to some military purpose but it's very big (makes an A380 look like a midget) and probably very expensive. Having a 20,000 km range and being able to do that in under 5 hours with 300 passengers might be something in itself.
- The heat exchanger technology required by their SABRE and Scimitar engines has been described as too expensive for other than space applications. I would be surprised if this continued to be the case indefinitely and that might mean that ordinary jet engines could become more efficient via some adapted version of it. Presumably that would have military impact.
Last edited by t43562; 15th Jul 2013 at 08:03.
Looking at the picture above ^^^^^
That's a big rocket to put a very small LEO satellite into space!
On a more serious note, haven't we trying to do this for years? I seem to remember something called HOTOL that looked spookily familiar.
iRaven
That's a big rocket to put a very small LEO satellite into space!
On a more serious note, haven't we trying to do this for years? I seem to remember something called HOTOL that looked spookily familiar.
iRaven
Skylon was designed by the same people who designed HOTOL. It is their way of getting around all the problems they encountered on the first attempt.
It's large because it is powered entirely by liquid hydrogen (relatively low density) and liquid oxygen and because nothing falls off it at any point - unlike multi-stage rockets. The design life is 200 flights per vehicle which is what gets the cost per flight down.
The design they show people is the C1 configuration with a 12 tonne payload to an equatorial orbit. They don't show off their D1 configuration which I believe carries 15 tonnes with better performance.
The heat exchangers in the engines are the primary enabling technology and a lot of effort has been put into proving them for that reason.
A way to sum it up is that the heat exchangers allow them to not have to carry 250 tonnes of liquid oxygen onboard which they get from the air as they ascend instead.
It's large because it is powered entirely by liquid hydrogen (relatively low density) and liquid oxygen and because nothing falls off it at any point - unlike multi-stage rockets. The design life is 200 flights per vehicle which is what gets the cost per flight down.
The design they show people is the C1 configuration with a 12 tonne payload to an equatorial orbit. They don't show off their D1 configuration which I believe carries 15 tonnes with better performance.
The heat exchangers in the engines are the primary enabling technology and a lot of effort has been put into proving them for that reason.
A way to sum it up is that the heat exchangers allow them to not have to carry 250 tonnes of liquid oxygen onboard which they get from the air as they ascend instead.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
it's an interesting technology, but the government shouldn't invest, for the following reasons.
£60M, or even £250M is peanuts and won't get you an end product, look at the sus Boeing and Airbus pour into an update for an existing design; similarly RR, PW in engines.
If the technology works then it's already been stolen by the USA and China and massive amounts, $250M a month or quarter, will be be being invested to get black one-shot space capability - which the maker will feed back to their commercial products.
Even if it works, the space market is a closed shop with just a few purchasers with existing and planned products, who will buy?
Concorde proved that the commercial market for high speed flight is minute, most people will save their money and fly as economically as possible, and video conferencing/web continues to shrink the market. Seriously, which airline would even consider buying someone of this nature?
Lovely concept, but it won't fly.... at least not in the UK/Europe.
£60M, or even £250M is peanuts and won't get you an end product, look at the sus Boeing and Airbus pour into an update for an existing design; similarly RR, PW in engines.
If the technology works then it's already been stolen by the USA and China and massive amounts, $250M a month or quarter, will be be being invested to get black one-shot space capability - which the maker will feed back to their commercial products.
Even if it works, the space market is a closed shop with just a few purchasers with existing and planned products, who will buy?
Concorde proved that the commercial market for high speed flight is minute, most people will save their money and fly as economically as possible, and video conferencing/web continues to shrink the market. Seriously, which airline would even consider buying someone of this nature?
Lovely concept, but it won't fly.... at least not in the UK/Europe.
It's a very interesting concept that does, indeed, build off HOTOL. Conceptually, the same sort of thing (single stage, close enough to orbit to need only a small kick stage) has been looked at before, and it is more attainable than true SSTO.
One problem is that the space business is now built around expendables, with a large and (until SpaceX) government-subsidized launch industry and big, long-lived, expensive spacecraft. The volume of large launches is therefore small, and consequently a big upfront investment in a launcher with low recurring costs is unattractive.
Another problem is that SpaceX has moved the cost bar, and is working on reusable technology, if not as flashy as Skylon's.
On the other hand, Skylon's technology would also be a way to get to hypersonic point-to-point flight without getting into the hairy aero-thermo-physics of scramjets.
One problem is that the space business is now built around expendables, with a large and (until SpaceX) government-subsidized launch industry and big, long-lived, expensive spacecraft. The volume of large launches is therefore small, and consequently a big upfront investment in a launcher with low recurring costs is unattractive.
Another problem is that SpaceX has moved the cost bar, and is working on reusable technology, if not as flashy as Skylon's.
On the other hand, Skylon's technology would also be a way to get to hypersonic point-to-point flight without getting into the hairy aero-thermo-physics of scramjets.
I'll just mention that Skylon is the spaceplane and is not some kind of Concorde replacement. Reaction Engines are interested in space access, not flying in the atmosphere. The Lapcat aircraft was studied because the EU were prepared to pay for the study but it's not what RE are interested in.
If we really believe we should give up because everything's going to be stolen then we might as well all go home and quietly gas ourselves. Since we don't intend to do that, we might as well make an effort and invest.
60 million will pay for a lot of technology to be developed of which much could have application in the here and now. They already have a precision manufacturing company (Brite Precision) for example which already puts their developed ability to use for other purposes. A government investment will help them with acquiring private finance too.
As Rolls-Royce etc are benefiting from the great investments of the past such as the RB211, it might be said that one can't afford not to make investments from time to time.
SpaceX etc have done well but they haven't actually delivered reusability yet. In any case the RE claim, accept it or not, is that the market can't grow without cheaper access to space and that providing that access will fuel the demand.
If we really believe we should give up because everything's going to be stolen then we might as well all go home and quietly gas ourselves. Since we don't intend to do that, we might as well make an effort and invest.
60 million will pay for a lot of technology to be developed of which much could have application in the here and now. They already have a precision manufacturing company (Brite Precision) for example which already puts their developed ability to use for other purposes. A government investment will help them with acquiring private finance too.
As Rolls-Royce etc are benefiting from the great investments of the past such as the RB211, it might be said that one can't afford not to make investments from time to time.
SpaceX etc have done well but they haven't actually delivered reusability yet. In any case the RE claim, accept it or not, is that the market can't grow without cheaper access to space and that providing that access will fuel the demand.
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I humbly submit to this esteemed group that a rethink regarding who steals what might be in order - yes it's true, every new design or concept is being stolen by everybody, so perhaps it's time to develop international partnerships which include China, Russia, India and the USA with commitments to joint funding and effort.
If no one comes to the party, nothing gets designed or built, if one of the parties do not divvy up their cash share, or do not commit the resource, the programme stops dead and everybody takes what they have at the time. All knowledge and assets are pooled.
You want to make a weapon out of your engagement, go for it, everyone else will know your capability and can build the same thing.
No secrets, no under the counter deals, just plain and simple mutual benefit for mankind.
It's the sun I tell you, he must be off his rocker, it'll never work, well consortiums have worked before notably Airbus, Military and Commercial and a few others so to extend it across more diverse nations can't be political rocket science.
Back in my hole now and wait for the incoming.
Imagegear
If no one comes to the party, nothing gets designed or built, if one of the parties do not divvy up their cash share, or do not commit the resource, the programme stops dead and everybody takes what they have at the time. All knowledge and assets are pooled.
You want to make a weapon out of your engagement, go for it, everyone else will know your capability and can build the same thing.
No secrets, no under the counter deals, just plain and simple mutual benefit for mankind.
It's the sun I tell you, he must be off his rocker, it'll never work, well consortiums have worked before notably Airbus, Military and Commercial and a few others so to extend it across more diverse nations can't be political rocket science.
Back in my hole now and wait for the incoming.
Imagegear
A useful summary
I wish I could insert this image directly but it's outside the size guidelines. It's a very good cutaway diagram that summarises the whole thing very succinctly;
http://www.cosmonline.co.uk/sites/de...s/Skylon_1.gif
http://www.cosmonline.co.uk/sites/de...s/Skylon_1.gif
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The RB545 Swallow engine is supposedly flying on the Aurora in the US of A if the tinfoil and Peanut butter brigade is to be believed
It's meant to be it's something to do with the thrust line. 
Got to go, the bloke on the black unicycle is wobbling up the road, Cuts eh!
The Sabre engine on the right of the picture looks a little bent...
Got to go, the bloke on the black unicycle is wobbling up the road, Cuts eh!
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might have missed something are they looking at ground lift off or a airbourne launch make a big differance
opps just look at coff post properly. However mother launch might be better.
opps just look at coff post properly. However mother launch might be better.
Last edited by Dysonsphere; 15th Jul 2013 at 19:29.
Great engine concept for an air breathing, high atmospheric vehicle. But, for space, no chance. Half the world length runway and Two-hours(!) to 28km.
Money is being spent to support air breathing engine development IMO. Also, the blurb states re-entry is slower than shuttle due to low weight, yeah right, light things orbit slower than heavy things
.....not!
OAP
Money is being spent to support air breathing engine development IMO. Also, the blurb states re-entry is slower than shuttle due to low weight, yeah right, light things orbit slower than heavy things
.....not!OAP