SKYLON D1 Update

Most of the activity on the SKYLON revision from C1 to D1 over the last two months has been trying to configure the vehicle so that it can be trimmed. ‘Trimmed’ means that all four forces acting on the airframe (lift, drag, thrust, and weight) can be balanced for stable flight. The revised SABRE engines have a different ratio of hydrogen to oxygen and it was always known this would make trim more difficult than for C1, a problem made worse by requiring a wider Centre of Mass range for payloads than assumed before (it will be reduced from what is defined in the User Manual). The good news is an elegant design solution is emerging for D1 and you won’t have to be an “anorak” to spot the differences from C1.

Work has also been progressing on an integrated computer model of the new SABRE engine in order to refine its performance predictions.

The New Mexico State University report by Doug Davis on Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Operations, relating to SKYLON, was delivered this month which will help to generate the D1 avionics requirements.

Liquid Oxygen-Cooled Rocket Combustion Chamber Test Firing

As part of REL’s Technology Demonstration Programme, EADS Astrium has recently test-fired a liquid oxygen-cooled rocket combustion chamber successfully (see photograph).

This test is important because it helps to verify the feasibility of cooling the SABRE combustion chamber using liquid oxygen rather than hydrogen (as with conventional hydrogen-oxygen combustion systems). In SABRE, hydrogen is used in the air cooling system and is not available for combustion chamber cooling.

Brian Blessed Returns to Abingdon

On 20th April the actor Brian Blessed visited Reaction Engines to provide the commentary for our new video clip on the SKYLON Personnel and Logistics Carrier. He was soon entertaining us with stories of his parachute training in Abingdon in the 1950s. Brian is a true space cadet having done a large part of the astronaut training programme and was very interested in what Reaction Engines is doing. We think Brian did a cracking job on the commentary, but judge for yourself by watching the movie.

RAeS Annual Conference

REL sponsored and exhibited at the prestigious event which took place on 21st and 22nd April. Dr Robert Bond gave a presentation on the history of the pre-cooled air-breathing rocket engine and also discussed how the future could look with the SKYLON spaceplane in operation.

Aerospace and Defence KTN Conference

On the 28th April Mark Hempsell gave a talk at the Aerospace and Defence KTN Conference 2010 in London on “Opportunities in Space” in which he highlighted some of the findings in the recent Space Innovation and Growth Team report. Aerospace KTN Members can download the presentation from the KTN website www.aeroktn.co.uk.

Congratulations to our friends at Airborne Engineering and the University of Bristol for the first static firing of the Canary sounding rocket’s hybrid engine. The engine has conventional nozzle and external deflection nozzle versions and it was the conventional nozzle version that was fired. When it is flying, Canary will explore the behaviour of external deflection nozzles with supersonic external flows and varying ambient pressures.

On the 20th April, Richard Varvill gave a public lecture on SKYLON and launch vehicles in aid of the project. We wish the restoration project and fundraising all the best.