Rolls-Royce and Boeing invest in UK space engine

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43732035

by sjcsjc • 8 years ago

152 64 8 years ago

bbc.co.uk

konschubert• 8 years ago

The total amount of this round is 26 Million, so Boing has maybe invested 10 Million or maybe even less.

That's 10% of the money the engine company raised in the previous years.

If a company as big as Boing really believed into the technology, wouldn't they have invested more?

My feeling is that this is more of a marketing/ stock value symbiosis than an actual commitment.

sschueller• 8 years ago

Maybe it's just a foot in the door until they are sure it's viable and the project doesn't die from lack of any funding.

akhatri_aus• 8 years ago

Making a new engine technology takes a long time. The jet engine took decades before its reliably seen for consumer use. It's likely there are still a couple more funding rounds down the road.

Why put in a large amount when you could wait for it and still hedge yourself in the meantime.

grondilu• 8 years ago

The jet engine took decades before its reliably seen for consumer use.

Wasn't the jet engine developed under very different circumstances? Like, with much lower computing power for CFD analysis, no CAD software and stuff?

Also, you're talking about consumer use but RE hasn't even built a full prototype and doesn't plan to test one (on the ground) before 2025.

Edit. 2020 instead of 2025, my bad. I may have read 2025 in a different article, possibly about the first test flight.

EliRivers• 8 years ago

If a company as big as Boing really believed into the technology, wouldn't they have invested more?

How? I suspect (but cannot prove) that the company doesn't need any more money right now. They've got 160 employees and their research programme is (I understand, but cannot prove) fully funded.

stock value symbiosis

Which stock value is that?

onion2k• 8 years ago

If a company as big as Boing really believed into the technology, wouldn't they have invested more?

There are examples of companies that raised too much money, thought they could do everything they could imagine, and then lost focus and things went very badly.

Mark Suster wrote a decent blog post about it - https://bothsidesofthetable.com/why-raising-too-much-money-c...

andygates2• 8 years ago

They're working as fast as they can - test site coming up, full demonstrator coming next. A pile of cash isn't needed at this time. There's not a lot of parallel stuff to do or kit to build.

nabla9• 8 years ago

They give enough for research to continue and keep the project alive.

They might have have contract where they commit more investments after some R&D goals are met.

jamestimmins• 8 years ago

My (perhaps overly optimistic) hope is that the private space race begins to look more like the autonomous car race. Rather than seeing a straightforward battle of old vs new, we're seeing companies at different stages take entirely different approaches by leveraging their own strengths. GM might be the best comparison, as they've purchased Cruise while keeping several distinct R&D groups within GM, all focused on different levels of autonomy. They have a lot of resources and they're willing to spread their bets.

I'm hopeful that a similar thing is going on within Boeing, where they have their own R&D groups (including their ULA teams), and then are making bets on external projects as well. If they continue to invest in bold bets like this, we could see more and more aerospace companies investing in new projects with the intent of actually productizing their tech (just to keep up). That would be a lot of fun to watch.

dmix• 8 years ago

There seems to be far less competition and much more state-heavy financing in the aerospace industry than autonomous cars. Not to mention higher capital requirements than a mobile app + customer service + sales team.

It's really not surprising it hasn't taken on the same form of multiple high growth startups + big company acquisitions all over the place.

But that said, it seems far more entrepreneurial, iterative, founders with big dreams, etc than the space industry ever has in the past. They could certainly use more of it.

Although, even the golden children like Planetary Resources failed to get a financing round and delayed their "asteroid mining" project indefinitely. So it isn't easy to aim high.

https://www.geekwire.com/2018/planetary-resources-asteroid-v...

zkirill• 8 years ago

Does anyone know if they will be carying out test launches in UK, or will they need to ship the rockets elsewhere to test them?

robin_reala3• 8 years ago

This is an engine, not a rocket.

igravious2• 8 years ago

First line of the article: “REL, based at Culham in Oxfordshire, is working on a propulsion system that is part jet engine, part rocket engine.”

IIAOPSW2• 8 years ago

UK is at a bad latitude for launching into orbit. Maybe Gibraltar?

NLips• 8 years ago

Not much better. I believe a bunch (all?) of ESA launches go from French Guiana, so my guess is that might be the easiest place to go for orbital launches for a British company.

Gravityloss• 8 years ago

Not so bad for polar orbit. They are planning orbital launches from northern Norway and Sweden too.

d33• 8 years ago

UK is at a bad latitude for launching into orbit.

Why? What would happen if one tried?

OrganicMSG2• 8 years ago

Historically we used to launch from Woomera, before we shut everything down as part of the deal giving us access to US nuclear missile tech, something our politicians were happy to do as they thought that missiles was all rockets were really for anyway.

Which I think ranks as one of the stupidest decisions the UK has ever made.

detritus3• 8 years ago

No, never. The runway's too short, the turning circle into the bay too right, the proximity and politics with their spanish neighbour too tricky.

twic4• 8 years ago

The UK is at a bad latitude for launching into equatorial orbits, but a good latitude for launching into polar orbits.

Polar orbits, and their relatives, such as sun-synchronous orbits, are useful for various kinds of missions. For example, earth observation missions, because they overfly every point on Earth, and missions where you need a continuous view of the sun, for solar power or observation.

andygates2• 8 years ago

The (still paper) Skylon proposal is a huge beastie vehicle that will need a very long, strong special runway.

One nice thing about the vehicle is how it can make a huge range of orbits by just steering the plane before its fast ascent phase. That means it could be in the UK, as some of the challenges with orbital launches are avoided.

walshemj• 8 years ago

Should have kept twinwoods then :-) also there is that last dich emergency abort strip for the shuttle up in Scotland.

timthorn• 8 years ago

The UK government has plans to develop a spaceport and has been considering a list of locations including in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/industry-backs-government...

kingkongjaffa• 8 years ago

SABRE has been a pipe dream for at least 6 years, Reaction engines are a con just like bloodhoundSSC.

UK engineering projects like this are trash money sinks.

robin_reala3• 8 years ago

I’m not sure how Bloodhound is a con? It’s a record attempt with little practical application apart from attempting to enthuse new engineers, but it’s never been marketed as more than that.

kitd3• 8 years ago

More than that, it is run by Richard Noble, who has already taken one project from plan to world land-speed record.

outworlder• 8 years ago

6 years is not a meaningful amount of time for a "pipe dream".

kitd3• 8 years ago

I think OP is thinking of HOTOL, which could justifiably be described as a pipe dream. RE is the result of taking the most practically implementable parts of HOTOL, ie the engines, and develop them properly. It's still ground-breaking stuff and I'm sure it will take a while yet, but the potential is definite, unlike HOTOL.

ditn• 8 years ago

Key technologies include a compact pre-cooler heat-exchanger that can take an incoming airstream of over 1,000C and cool it to -150C in less than 1/100th of a second.

That seems incredible. I'd love to see in greater detail how the system works.

baq• 8 years ago

it's a super efficient fridge basically, with helium as a coolant. see https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre/technology/heat-exch...

CarVac• 8 years ago

Countercurrent exchange to the extreme.

It even uses countercurrent exchange of methanol as a deicer; it sprays in pure methanol at the coldest parts of the heat exchanger, captures it somehow, and sprays the increasingly waterlogged mixture farther and farther upstream where it's warmer and doesn't need to be as concentrated to prevent freezing.

jernfrost• 8 years ago

Really excited about this. Maybe good old Europe can have a SpaceX moment in the future.

If we don't up the game, European Space agency will be utterly incapable of competing with SpaceX. Perhaps this is what people are starting to grasp which is why Sabre is getting more funding now.

gaius2• 8 years ago

Really excited about this.

As a kid in the 80’s I had a HOTOL poster on my wall. Hope I get to see one fly one day!

detritus3• 8 years ago

I the same! Was it a pull-out from a magazine, or something, do you recall? I had it alongside a fold-out cross-section of 'the Chunnel' on my bedroom wall :.)

Exciting times. I'm particulary happy that they appear to be not just focusing on the space angle, rather global travel too, which seems a much more likely use, at least in the short term.

justinclift4• 8 years ago

Interestingly (to me), they seem to be doing at least some of their design in Solidworks:

  https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/manufacturing-solutions-division/
  "Our drawing data is produced to British standard BS 8888 using
  industry leading SolidWorks 3D CAD package, which integrates directly
  with our CNC machines and inspection department."

Was kind of expecting they'd be using something more specialist or exotic. But, I guess as long as it gets the job done, why not? ;)

maxxxxx2• 8 years ago

Are there any better packages than Solidworks?

justinclift4• 8 years ago

From what I can tell, both Siemens NX and Catia/3DExperience seem to be widely used for "high end" stuff. With Solidworks regarded as a lesser/mundane package due to its limited functionality in comparison.

That could just be an incorrect impression on my part though. :)

Usability-wise on the other hand, Solidworks seems far ahead of Catia/3DExperience and pretty much on-par with NX. Again, just my impressions (to this point).

The same page on the Reaction Engines website mentions they use RADAN, which seems to be a sheet metal specific thing.

Not seeing mentions anywhere obvious on their website of FEM (etc) analysis packages, so guessing it'll either be something that's a Solidworks add-on/plugin, or perhaps something custom written.

trhway• 8 years ago

between SABRE and pure rocket there is air-augmented rocket. The latter has significantly increased specific impulse, ~2-3x, over pure rocket while is significantly simpler and cheaper, no unobtanium required, construction compare to SABRE. Basically it is just wrapping your first stage engine block with an air-duct. 60 years ago USSR designed a very compact air-augmented ICBM and actually fielded a smaller missile - an air-augmented tactical ballistic missile.

http://www.astronautix.com/g/gnom.html:

"The concept was evidently been proved on a subscale tactical missile, the PR-90, now on display at MAI's museum at Orevo, north of Moscow. The PR-90, with a launch mass of only 1500 kg, of which 550 kg was payload, could reach an altitude of 40 km and a range of 100 km. The booster unit used 200 kg of RAM-10 ballistite with a specific impulse of 180 seconds to get the missile up to ram-air ignition speed. Then the air-augmented unit, with a specific impulse of 550 seconds, cut in and used 300 kg of propellant to boost the vehicle to its 1 km/s cut-off speed. An equivalent liquid propellant missile (such as the American Lance) weighed over twice as much. A solid propellant equivalent (such as the French Pluton) would weigh three times more. "

USSR Lunar rocket (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)) was supposed to partially use that effect too - the gap between the 2nd and the wider 1st stages would serve as an air inlet ramming the incoming air down into the channel formed by the circle arranged engines of the 1st stage (the project failed for other reasons though).

ChuckMcM• 8 years ago

Ah yes, the almost, but not quite, dead Skylon. It would be a remarkable engine if they could build it, but to date they have run into engineering problems for which they really don't have any solutions for (like a material that can be 1000C at one end and -150C at the other and not lose all of its desirable properties.

Conceptually as soon as they figure out how to make materials that can exist and retain their properties in the extraordinary conditions this engine would create, its only a matter of building a few of them to make a completely reusable space plane.

Similarly if we figure out what causes gravity and then build a mechanism to nullify it, we'll easily be able to move into space.

But it is kind of a big step.

boznz• 8 years ago

Awesome, but will there be a market now fully re-useable rockets are becoming a thing?

Also the bits supporting the engine (ie the fucking spaceship) is not mentioned anywhere, if they are going to fly this thing in 2020 (!!) making an airframe for this which has to fly 5-10 times as fast as concorde and stores hydrogen/oxygen is not going to be a walk in the park in terms of engineering.

Rolls-Royce and Boeing invest in UK space engine

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