Air-breathing SABRE rocket engine set to enter test phase

Reaction Engine’s Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) is closer to reality with ESA and the UK Space Agency (UKSA) green lighting the preliminary design of the demonstrator engine core. The successful review of the hypersonic engine, which is designed to act as both a jet and a rocket, means that the company can move on the major testing milestones in the next 18 months.

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i worry when these kinds of projects move so slowly

either its bonafide or its much harder than they originally thought and the thing has actually come to a halt

I’m rather happy to see it progressing, if they can get the entire aircraft working as intended it’ll be a superb SSTO machine.

Spiny Norman said:

I’m rather happy to see it progressing, if they can get the entire aircraft working as intended it’ll be a superb SSTO machine.

Time delays are usually due to insufficient staff.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Air-breathing SABRE rocket engine set to enter test phase

Reaction Engine’s Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) is closer to reality with ESA and the UK Space Agency (UKSA) green lighting the preliminary design of the demonstrator engine core. The successful review of the hypersonic engine, which is designed to act as both a jet and a rocket, means that the company can move on the major testing milestones in the next 18 months.

more…

“SABRE is a hypersonic hybrid engine. It draws in air to act like a conventional jet while accelerating to speeds of up to Mach 5, then converts to a pure rocket engine burning hydrogen and liquid oxygen, making speeds of up to Mach 25 possible.”

“Key to this is a revolutionary heat exchanger that protects the engine as it approaches hypersonic velocity. At high supersonic speeds, the air is coming into the engine with the force 25 times that of a category 5 hurricane, generating temperatures that would melt any material that the engine might be made of. To prevent this, SABRE has a precooler that uses recirculated cryogenic hydrogen fuel to cool incoming air down from 1,000° C to -150° C in 1/100th of a second.”

Hold on! Is this a ramjet or scramjet? From wikipedia, “ramjets work most efficiently at supersonic speeds around Mach 3. This type of engine can operate up to speeds of Mach 6.” This is a ramjet rocket hybrid.

Compare the engine of the SR-71, which is a turbojet ramjet hybrid.

SABRE

SR-71