A British company has created an engine that could be used for space travel. CNN reported that Reaction Engines Ltd. (REL) has new technology that would help aircrafts fly into space and back from a runway. It would also enable a plane to fly anywhere in the world in four hours.
CNN reported that the technology is called Sabre or Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine. The site's website states, "We have achieved a breakthrough in aerospace engine technology by developing ultra-lightweight heat exchangers 100 times lighter than existing technologies that allow the cooling of very hot airstreams from over 1,000 °C to minus 150 °C in less than 1/100th of a second."
Aviation Week reported that the technological advancement was endorsed by the European Space Agency (ESA).
REL chief executive Tim Hayter said in a press conference according to CNN, "We have made the biggest breakthrough in propulsion technology since the jet engine."
REL has a vision of a SKYLON space plane to be used by Reaction engines but they don't have a timeline as to when the space plane could be built. CNN reported, "Although an operational Sabre engine is years away from production, REL has published descriptions and artist renderings of a space plane, dubbed SKYLON, that would presumably use the Sabre engine."
The company has put in two decades of research and at a pres conference Hayter said that the space markets value is at $300 billion and that this engine would have a "transformative impact," reported CNN.
REL's website states that the European Space Agency said,"ESA are confident that a ground test of a sub-scale [SABRE] engine can be successfully performed to demonstrate the flight regime and cycle and will be a critical milestone in the development of this program and a major breakthrough in propulsion worldwide."
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