Straight out of the freakin' Thunderbirds!
Makes sense to carry less oxygen because until it is burned, it is nothing but dead weight.
Straight out of the freakin' Thunderbirds!
This was an interesting article. I understand researching alternate approaches to a problem but twenty years ago we used the heat of hypersonic to turn a liquid (fuel) into a gas. Now we’re going to go 180 degrees out after twenty years and turn a gas (oxygen) into a liquid. The guy’s funny quote was “we don’t want to reinvent the wheel” The original intent was to develop an air-breather, this seems more rocket than plane. Twenty years ago I saw a co-op get his PhD and take over a major facility, guess he’s about ready for his government retirement now, haha, and we still don’t have a plane in the air.
“When SABRE reaches an altitude of 16 miles (26 kilometers) and five times the speed of sound (Mach 5), however, it switches over to Skylon’s onboard liquid oxygen tank to reach orbit. (Hypersonic flight is generally defined as anything that reaches at least Mach 5.)”
I don’t see how you can scrub the oxygen from the inlet air to produce the liquid oxygen and ever achieve mach 5 to begin with. Either this way or the “old” way a combined cycle engine is necessary. Hydrogen wasn’t the only fuel researched that made the “old” way (full air-breather) feasible.