Skylon

Skylon

Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh

"For the last quarter century or so, a British company called Reaction Engines has been making slow, steady progress toward a hybrid system that has the potential to bind aircraft and spacecraft together. Reaction’s Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) could power a safe, efficient, and very cool looking single-stage-to-orbit vehicle. It's an enormous technical challenge, but one that may now be realistically solvable thanks to massive new investment from BAE Systems and the British government. BAE just ponied up £20.6 million for a 20-percent stake in the company. And with £60 million in grants coming from the UK government, the company thinks it should have the resources it needs to stage a full-scale ground test of SABRE by 2020, and unmanned test flights around 2025."
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/aviation/bae-systems-uk-invest-120-million-in-skylon-space-plane-engine-prototype

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