What would you expect to find at the home of Reaction Engines Ltd (REL), at Culham Science Centre just outside Abingdon?
As the name suggests, it’s engines of some sort – probably car or perhaps even industrial. But you’d be miles off, because what they’re actually making at REL is a future generation of space planes. You read that right: SPACE PLANES!
For the uninitiated, a Space Plane is a plane that can travel to and within the outer edge of our atmosphere (aka space) in order to reduce time, fuel, cost and pollution – making trips to Australia possible in only a matter of hours, by using the earth’s gravitational pull to travel at ridiculously high speeds (we’re talking in the thousands of miles per hour!).
And if you’ve read the BBC recently, you’ll have seen they’ve had a big breakthrough:
UK’s Sabre space plane engine tech in new milestone
So much so that Rolls Royce, BAE Systems and Boeing are backing the project.
According to REL:
“Our goal is to deliver a truly versatile propulsion system – a hybrid air-breathing rocket engine that can power an aircraft from a standing start to over five times the speed of sound for hypersonic flight in the atmosphere, and over 25 times the speed of sound for space access. With its wide range of operation and scalability, the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE™) represents a defining moment in powered flight.”
So there you have it. From everyone here at Selective Recruitment in Abingdon, Oxford, Southampton and London, we salute you!
