The Skylon airplane is a proposed reusable space plane that would use a turbojet engine to reach Mach 5.5 before switching to a rocket motor to reach orbital speed. It would release a 13-ton payload before landing on a conventional runway. Its unique engine, SABER, uses a pre-cooler to vaporize and expel liquid hydrogen, allowing for a higher payload to fuel ratio. Skylon’s designers hope to reduce launch costs and make space travel more accessible. It has not yet been built, but detailed plans have been created, and its supporters hope it could reduce costs to orbit by a factor of 10-20 or more.
The Skylon airplane is a proposal by Reaction Engines Limited – a British company based in Oxfordshire – to build an orbital launch vehicle that could take off from a conventional runway, accelerate to Mach 5.5 using a turbojet engine, then close the intake, switch operation to that of a rocket motor and accelerate to typical orbital speed of Mach 23.
It would then release a 13-ton payload, re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, and land again on a conventional runway. Using the single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) approach, Skylon’s designers hope to radically reduce launch costs and open up the high frontier to private enterprise. Skylon has not yet been built, but detailed plans have been created. Reaction Engines Limited is seeking funding to build a prototype.
Skylon’s most important and unique component is its specially designed engine, SABER (Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine). SABER is a bi-mode air-breathing engine powered by liquid hydrogen. The engine uses a pre-cooler before vaporising and expelling the fuel, allowing for the use of low weight alloys in the construction, in turn increasing the overall payload to fuel ratio. The incoming air is used as an oxidizer, decreasing the mass of the fuel. Around Mach 5.5, the incoming air starts to get too hot to be used effectively. The intake valve is closed and the rocket motor is ignited, carrying Skylon the rest of the way.
The Skylon design has a length of 82 m (269 ft), about 40% longer than the Space Shuttle. It has a fuselage diameter of 6.25 m (20.5 ft) and a wingspan of 25 m (82 ft). The frame is long, sleek and reminiscent of the SR-71 Blackbird. Its empty mass is 41,000 kg (90,400 lbs), with a fuel mass of 220,000 kg (485,000 lbs or 242.5 tons) and a maximum payload mass of 12,000 kg (26,450 lbs). The entire aircraft can be thought of as similar to an SR-71 Blackbird, except twice the size and equipped with a rocket engine.
The Skylon airplane would be a reusable vehicle, ready for relaunch after just two days of maintenance and capable of making 200 trips into orbit before requiring replacement. Its supporters hope Skylon could reduce costs to orbit by a factor of 10-20 or more. The Skylon space plane would be a nice stepping stone to launch methods, something cheaper and better than our current rockets, to jumpstart the space economy while we’re still starting to build a space elevator.
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