8 ms·

Rolls-Royce and Boeing invest in UK space engine

152 points by sjcsjc 9y ago

konschubert 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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.
    - kitd 9y ago
      Article says 2020
    - le-mark 9y ago
      There's a lot of art in the production of truly high tech engines. See for example China's difficulty creating a single crystal turbine blades for a turbo fan to use in it's J20 stealth fighter. They can of course use a lesser engine, but the capability of the fighter will be much less than its contemporaries. Boeing is most likely buying access to the this art.
- EliRivers 9y 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 9y 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-can-harm-your-startup-5adc112e1259 https://bothsidesofthetable.com/why-raising-too-much-money-c...
- andygates 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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-venture-misses-fundraising-target-forcing-cutbacks/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/planetary-resources-asteroid-v...
zkirill 9y 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_reala 9y ago
  This is an engine, not a rocket.
  - igravious 9y 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.”
    - twic 9y ago
      I assume that robin_reala means that this is a motor, not a vehicle. So you don't need to do launches to a useful orbit as part of development. Or production - you can sell the motor to someone who wants to build a spaceplane. That said, my understanding is that Reaction Engines plans to build the spaceplane too, although if someone else with more expertise came along and wanted to do that, i imagine they would be open to it.
      - igravious 9y ago
        That wasn't my interpretation but I'm open to yours, thanks!
- IIAOPSW 9y ago
  UK is at a bad latitude for launching into orbit. Maybe Gibraltar?
  - NLips 9y 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.
kingkongjaffa 9y 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_reala 9y 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.
  - kitd 9y ago
    More than that, it is run by Richard Noble, who has already taken one project from plan to world land-speed record.
    - Lio 9y ago
      Totally agree. Richard Noble originally set a new land speed record with Thrust2 in 1983. Thrust2 held that record till 1997 when ThrustSSC, another car he developed, broke it again. ThrustSSC still holds the world landspeed record. If anyone is going to break that record my money is on them doing it in Richard Noble’s new car, BloodhoundSSC.
- outworlder 9y ago
  6 years is not a meaningful amount of time for a "pipe dream".
  - kitd 9y 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 9y 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 9y ago
  it's a super efficient fridge basically, with helium as a coolant. see https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre/technology/heat-exchangers/ https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre/technology/heat-exch...
- CarVac 9y 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 9y 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.
- gaius 9y 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!
  - detritus 9y 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.
    - gaius 9y ago
      I vaguely remember BAe giving out loads of stuff like that at my school. All the kids had stickers of Skyflash and other missiles on lunchboxes!
justinclift 9y 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? ;)
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Are there any better packages than Solidworks?
  - justinclift 9y 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.
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
      I used to work with Catia for a while and I had the impression that their strength was more the ability to sell to enterprises and not the actual product. But I never did a direct comparison to other products so that impression may be wrong.
      - justinclift 9y ago
        Well... both Catia and NX (among others) have the ability to natively create and use organic shapes. With Solidworks, it's not (or at least wasn't) a native capability. There is a company (nPower Software) making plugins for Solidworks giving organic shape capabilities: http://www.npowersoftware.com http://www.npowersoftware.com Addons vs native integration... I'd doubt the add-on approach is as in-depth and practical to use. I could be wrong though. :) Catia also has things like "Natural Sketch", used for ideation and general concept development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXYCaabNHCo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXYCaabNHCo NX may have similar, but I'm not sure. Reputation wise... Dassault has a bad reputation for not listening to customers / forcing customers to adopt stuff they don't want/need. Siemens has a much better reputation. Autodesk's is mixed. That's all just my outsiders perspective. ;)
trhway 9y 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 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) 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 9y 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 9y 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.

152 points by sjcsjc 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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.
  - kitd 9y ago
    Article says 2020
  - le-mark 9y ago
    There's a lot of art in the production of truly high tech engines. See for example China's difficulty creating a single crystal turbine blades for a turbo fan to use in it's J20 stealth fighter. They can of course use a lesser engine, but the capability of the fighter will be much less than its contemporaries. Boeing is most likely buying access to the this art.
EliRivers 9y 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 9y 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-can-harm-your-startup-5adc112e1259 https://bothsidesofthetable.com/why-raising-too-much-money-c...
andygates 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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 9y 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-venture-misses-fundraising-target-forcing-cutbacks/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/planetary-resources-asteroid-v...

zkirill 9y 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_reala 9y ago
This is an engine, not a rocket.
- igravious 9y 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.”
  - twic 9y ago
    I assume that robin_reala means that this is a motor, not a vehicle. So you don't need to do launches to a useful orbit as part of development. Or production - you can sell the motor to someone who wants to build a spaceplane. That said, my understanding is that Reaction Engines plans to build the spaceplane too, although if someone else with more expertise came along and wanted to do that, i imagine they would be open to it.
    - igravious 9y ago
      That wasn't my interpretation but I'm open to yours, thanks!
IIAOPSW 9y ago
UK is at a bad latitude for launching into orbit. Maybe Gibraltar?
- NLips 9y 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.

kingkongjaffa 9y 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_reala 9y 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.
- kitd 9y ago
  More than that, it is run by Richard Noble, who has already taken one project from plan to world land-speed record.
  - Lio 9y ago
    Totally agree. Richard Noble originally set a new land speed record with Thrust2 in 1983. Thrust2 held that record till 1997 when ThrustSSC, another car he developed, broke it again. ThrustSSC still holds the world landspeed record. If anyone is going to break that record my money is on them doing it in Richard Noble’s new car, BloodhoundSSC.
outworlder 9y ago
6 years is not a meaningful amount of time for a "pipe dream".
- kitd 9y 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 9y 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 9y ago
it's a super efficient fridge basically, with helium as a coolant. see https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre/technology/heat-exchangers/ https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre/technology/heat-exch...
CarVac 9y 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 9y 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.

gaius 9y 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!
- detritus 9y 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.
  - gaius 9y ago
    I vaguely remember BAe giving out loads of stuff like that at my school. All the kids had stickers of Skyflash and other missiles on lunchboxes!

justinclift 9y 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? ;)

maxxxxx 9y ago
Are there any better packages than Solidworks?
- justinclift 9y 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.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    I used to work with Catia for a while and I had the impression that their strength was more the ability to sell to enterprises and not the actual product. But I never did a direct comparison to other products so that impression may be wrong.
    - justinclift 9y ago
      Well... both Catia and NX (among others) have the ability to natively create and use organic shapes. With Solidworks, it's not (or at least wasn't) a native capability. There is a company (nPower Software) making plugins for Solidworks giving organic shape capabilities: http://www.npowersoftware.com http://www.npowersoftware.com Addons vs native integration... I'd doubt the add-on approach is as in-depth and practical to use. I could be wrong though. :) Catia also has things like "Natural Sketch", used for ideation and general concept development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXYCaabNHCo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXYCaabNHCo NX may have similar, but I'm not sure. Reputation wise... Dassault has a bad reputation for not listening to customers / forcing customers to adopt stuff they don't want/need. Siemens has a much better reputation. Autodesk's is mixed. That's all just my outsiders perspective. ;)

trhway 9y 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 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) 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 9y 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 9y 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.