While still years away from flying, the Skylon may revolutionize how humanity soars to space in the 2020s.
Image: Reaction Engines
Bond’s Skylon to achieve dream
of single-stage-to-orbit vehicle
By Amjad P. Zaidi
In the UK’s Oxfordshire countryside, the legacy of British invention is
being passed from Sir Frank Whittle
to a new group of dedicated
aerospace engineers and one man
in particular; Alan Bond.
The long held dream of UK
spaceflight is coming closer to
reality, and his dream could be a
game-changer.
Despite decades of lacklustre
political interest Reaction Engines
Limited (REL) is working on a
revolutionary engine that could
herald a new era of space travel.
Historically the UK, while being rich
in inventing talent, has increasingly
suffered from a decline in “big
growth” industries.
This was especially true due to
the costly rebuilding efforts after
the Second World War when
successive government investment
and appetite for fiscally supported
50
50
industrial and sector wide initiatives
has waned.
Against this stark backdrop,
lifelong inventors, like Bond, have
toiled away on meagre funds
dedicated to their concepts, holistic
thinking and often encountering
obstacles along the way. However
this landscape could change soon.
Alan Bond and REL are behind
Skylon; the successor to Britain’s
aborted
HOTOL
space-plane
concept of the late 1980s. It is an
unpiloted fully reusable aircraft-like
vehicle capable of transporting 15
tonnes of cargo into space and
is intended as a replacement for
expensive expendable launchers in
the commercial market.
Skylon aims to be the first single
stage to orbit (SSTO) vehicle in
the world, addressing the needs
of all major space launch markets
(telecoms
payloads,
multiple
small satellites, personnel, cargo,
space station supplies and orbital
infrastructure embedding).
The Skylon vehicle consists of
a slender fuselage containing
propellant tankage and a payload
bay, with delta wings attached
midway
along
the
fuselage
carrying the SABRE (Synergetic Air
Breathing Rocket Engine) engines
in axisymmetric nacelles on the
wingtips.
Within these SABRE engines lies
a unique technology developed
by Bond and so far untapped by
the wider aerospace and space
industry.
Children of Apollo
Inspired by the adventures of
British Astronaut pilot Dan Dare
in the Eagle comics of the 1960s,
Bond’s inspiration for manned
spaceflight began at an early age.
As a teenager, Bond built rockets in
his back garden shed but began to
www.RocketSTEM.org