Skylon - British Space Plane

[eatthis]

Alternatively, the various ministries will organise the program in such a way that it can't possibly work, with an inadequate budget, ignoring the protestations of Reaction Engines right from the start. Then when it's a few years late and a few billion over budget, the newspapers will pick up on it, thereby promoting it to the status of crisis (i.e. they'll link a minister's name to it). The program will then be re-organised along the lines that Reaction Engines suggested in the first place, given the cash it needed in the first place and a generous six months to get back on track. By herculean effort, the contractors will actually succeed in 95% of this, only for a critical report written seven months before to get leaked to the press just before an election, leading the government to panic and cancel the whole project in order to show how responsible they are with public money.....

hmm sounds familiar 

[Runway ? ...]

- And the US will fly one the same week.

[Weaver]

New report says that Skylon economics stack up:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27591432

This is good news: "clever" makes things possible, but "profitable" makes things actually happen....

[Mossie]

More good news.

I think the first pic on the link shows the Skylon D1 configuration (most are of C1 or C2), first time I've a CGI of it, although I've seen line drawings of potential configurations before.  To be honest, there's not much change, it's just a bit of shape refinement to improve the aerodynamics and give it an extra three tonnes of payload and I think the bay will be enlarged accordingly.

[Mossie]

Reaction Engines have announced that they expect static testing of the SABRE engine to take place in 2019:
http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/press_release.html

[Mossie]

The SABRE precooler has been tested up to Mach 5.

IIRC the precooler was the main technology that needed development and this should pin everything else together.  Hopefully a full SABRE prototype is a matter of time:
https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/news/reaction-engines-test-programme-fully-validates-precooler-hypersonic-heat-conditions

And it seems to have resulted in a contract to supply a precooler to Nammo at a new UK test facility:
https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/news/reaction-engines-awarded-contract-nammo-uk

[Weaver]

It's good news, but SpaceX is driving a coach and horses through the launch business with their pricing. The niche that Skylon is aimed at might be closing.

[Mossie]

Maybe, but the SABRE technology is more versatile and can be used for hypersonic platforms too.  I'd still imagine an air breathing rocket would have advantages over traditional rockets, although Elon Musk will have a lot of time to perfect reusable rockets by the time SABRE may enter service on a platform.

[Weaver]

Indeed, and as one of the articles you linked to shows, there are other industrial applications for the intercooler technology.

The real sticking point is money, of course. So far, the amounts involved have been small enough that the UK government can keep it going pretty much under the radar, but building and test-flying a full prototype will need an exponential increase in the budget, which will inevitably make it a politically more conspicuous and controversial matter. If it doesn't inspire much public enthusiasm, and I can't help feeling that it won't, then it won't command much political support either.

[Mossie]

They've had industry funding from a few sources, including BAE buying a 20% share.  I think that's the key, they were wary of being purely funded by Government after HOTOL.  As long as there's promise of business, industry will keep coming.

Like you say, all the technologies are applicable elsewhere so if SABRE doesn't work out they should be able to keep going.  Current investment in the spaceports and the research facility in Westcott will hopefully carry on interest.

I've been quite impressed by Reaction Engines business model.  Back when I started this thread I hoped, but didn't really think that Skylon would be built.  It's always been the shop window and won't be built in that form (and not by RE), but building the horse before the cart is historically much more  likely to yield results than trying to build the whole platform at once. Fingers crossed that we'll see hypersonics and SSTO's in our lifetime.