Skylon: how the Mach 5 space plane will work

The European Space Agency has given its approval to technology developed by a British firm which could transform space travel – and lead to the development of an airliner capable of taking 300 passengers from Europe to Australia in four hours.

The Skylon aircraft is still at the theoretical stage, but the government is funding its development.

What is Skylon?

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A British company based in Oxfordshire, Reaction Engines Ltd, has developed a new type of jet engine, known as Sabre (Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine), which they say could power a space plane.

The proposed aircraft, the Skylon, would use Sabre engines to carry 300 passengers from Europe to Australia within four hours.

The company has not yet built a full version of the engine, but it has constructed a critical component and now hopes to launch it as soon as 2019.

How will it work?

The heat exchanger made by Reaction is the key to the new technology, says The Independent. It cools air from 1,000C to 150C in one hundredth of a second, allowing the engine to use air as fuel, rather than oxygen from a tank.

Reaction's heat exchanger will solve a problem that has prevented most gas-turbine jet engines from being able to go faster than 2.5 times the speed of sound. The Concorde, for example, flew no faster than Mach 2. According to researchers, the new technology may allow planes to travel at more than twice that speed.

What problem does it solve?

Existing space rockets must carry tanks of oxygen with them – and the weight slows everything down. Reaction researchers believe their new technology could make space travel 95 per cent cheaper.

If it works, Sabre technology could allow a jet aircraft to carry satellites and other spacecraft beyond the earth's atmosphere before returning to the planet below. It could also be used to transport passengers quickly between distant locations on earth significantly more quickly than is currently possible.

What happens next?

The latest development is that the ESA have looked at Reaction's data and agreed that the heat exchange technology is viable and workable. The next stage is to build working prototype of the full Sabre engine.

Last year, says the Daily Mail, the government announced it was investing £60m in building just such a prototype.