Faster than sound ‘spaceplane’ passes first testing

A “spaceplane” that is scheduled to fly 25 times faster than the speed of sound has passed a testing milestone making it much more likely that travellers will soon be able to make the trip between London to New York in under an hour.

The hypersonic plane, which developers say will be able to fly from the UK to Australia in four hours, has been developed by Oxford-based Reaction Engines, who have been working in conjunction with the European Space Agency, the UK Space Agency, and BAE Systems. The teams were recently able to get a key component, the pre-cooler, to pass testing.

The pre-cooler is critical in the plane’s development because it’s required to stop the engine from melting by lowering the temperature of compressed air in the engine from more than 1,000 degrees Celsius to room temperature in one-twentieth of a second.

The new experimental engine, called Sabre, works like a rocket engine that breathes, according to developers.

From takeoff to Mach 5.5, the Sabre draws oxygen from the atmosphere which is then ignited in a rocket combustion chamber alongside stored liquid hydrogen.

The plane then switches to burning liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen from onboard fuel tanks, which allows it to reach 25 times the speed of sound to enter space.

Mark Thomas, the Reaction Engines chief executive, told the Times: “If you can pull it off, it’s a game changer. It kicks conventional rocket engines into touch.”

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.