4 ms·
"The key insight is to use electric motors to drive a compressor." Is this for the air intake? There must be a speed limit to this surely, and then you have to
by jacknews 3y ago
"The key insight is to use electric motors to drive a compressor."
Is this for the air intake? There must be a speed limit to this surely, and then you have to close intake and switch to rocket mode or something?
And then there's the weight of the batteries and motors - I guess you could re-purpose those as oxidizer pump or whatever maybe.
And is that an aerospike? A nice idea, but problematic for thermals.
I mean I assume they have something working, but I'm skeptical of the concept.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> must be a speed limit to this surely, Why? Scramjets combust supersonic flows [1]. > aerospike If this is a jet engine, as described, that's the back of the turbine. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jacknews 3y agoI don't think scramjets have turbines?
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoThis isn’t a scramjet. We watched it cold start and it has a compressor.
- jacknews 3y agoExactly, so why are you posting a link to scramjets, in relation to supersonic combustion? I don't think a turbine engine can handle hypersonic speeds, and so this will only work in the first phase of flight, as a booster. Or if it's intended for SSO, the intake will have to close at higher speeds, or the very least the turbine stopped, and the engine switch to rocket mode, with oxidizer pumped in somehow. And then the 'back of the turbine' will likely have thermal issues.