The UK Ministry of Defence has announced a significant milestone in the development of hypersonic weapons, following the successful completion of a large-scale propulsion test campaign carried out in partnership with the United States.
The six-week trial, led by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), involved 233 static test runs of a high-speed air-breathing engine concept designed to power a future UK hypersonic cruise missile. Testing took place at the NASA Langley Research Centre in Virginia, supported by industry partners including British SME Gas Dynamics Ltd.
The propulsion system forms a core component of the UK’s ambition to deliver a hypersonic weapon demonstrator by 2030 under its Team Hypersonics (UK) programme. The tests successfully demonstrated performance across a full spectrum of speeds, from supersonic to hypersonic flight regimes.
According to the Ministry of Defence, this capability could offer a “transformational” leap in range and responsiveness over traditional rocket-based systems, enabling greater operational reach and survivability in contested environments.
Defence Secretary John Healey hailed the progress, stating: “We are living in a more dangerous world and it has never been more important for us to innovate and stay ahead of our adversaries, equipping our forces with the technologies of the future.” He emphasised the importance of close cooperation with the US, adding: “This milestone moment on hypersonics research… demonstrates another crucial area where we are working in lockstep with the United States to bolster our Armed Forces and strengthen our deterrence.”
Dstl’s Chief Executive Paul Hollinshead described the outcome as “a critical advancement in the UK’s defence capabilities” and one that “reinforces our standing in the AUKUS hypersonic weapon development collaboration.”
The UK’s hypersonic ambitions sit alongside its commitments under the AUKUS security partnership with the US and Australia, which includes a trilateral pillar focused on advanced capabilities such as hypersonic and counter-hypersonic systems.
This latest development follows the UK government’s wider push to invest in high-end defence technology. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War, including funding for next-generation systems such as air defence, directed energy weapons, and hypersonics.
The MOD noted that data gathered from the test campaign is now being analysed to refine engine design and performance characteristics, paving the way for future upgrades and integration into a full missile system.
Is this engine based on reactions engine tech? Certainly sounds like it.
Almost certainly it is.
I suspect that MOD got IP rights for funding.
So a part of Reaction Engines lives on subsumed into something else.
The release is very vague about what these tests actually are. But I would *guess* they were to validate supersonic to hypersonic transitions in a wind tunnel. That if it self is interesting that USAF have a hypersonic test facility.
I’d agree, it certainly sounds like a follow on of the Reaction Engines IP.
I’m wondering how much USAF involvement there actually is, I suspect it was simply a case of using their hypersonic test facility – something the UK lacks.
And at that stage MoD was too short of capital budgets and time to build?
Interestingly a Reaction Engines was building a test facility in this Country at the time of their demise, up to then tests were carried out in the US where they have been testing rocket and hypersonics for years including Langley Research Center, so like other tech we test in the US it makes sense. Don’t know if Reaction tested there mind, the published tests were in Colorado but were with the AFRL Interesting coincidence Langley is where much of the drone activity has been reported in recent months, I will say no more. SME GAS Dynamics seem to have been working on a scram jet solution which I stated before in relation to Reaction Engines, is a better solution for hypersonic missiles that are anything but ground launched certainly, so I think this is probably not Reaction Engines technology though can’t say if some add on IP may be involved or not. This is backed up by the statement that tests covered the Supersonic to Hypersonic envelope, which of course is the area where Ram/Scramjets operate. So I’m assuming this is likely a hybrid Scramjet solution in similar vein to US efforts.
Reaction Engines Sabre was more suited to hypersonic high altitude aircraft or Space planes though ground launched hypersonic missiles could benefit from it, but would be an expensive solution for a one way weapon. Indeed reports suggested that the USAF was interested in the technology related to its potential for aircraft.
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No it’s not, Reaction engines technology just did not work and the British government never owned any of its IP.
Hmmme, you’ve never done any defence contracting?
Whilst I agree that this isn’t the fully working reaction engines design I would be amazed if none of the tech had made it into this. There must have been useful test results and positive data for hard headed people to keep investing.
All defence related IP ultimately belongs to The Crown….that is the whole meaning of sovereign IP……so in failure it ultimately reverts to The Crown…..if PWC can’t find a buyer then the royalty fees MoD pays will be zero as they will buy them for a nominal £1.
Various elements of the IP were actually licensed. Investment if often secured against IP rights anyway.
As others have commented RR and BAES were convinced by the tech and they are both quite cynical investors.
Aspects of it live on. Let’s put it that way.
Again Jim you have never offered any evidence it didn’t work, the problem was that the Sabres engine was a hybrid power solution brilliant and viable in theory but that currently had no obvious application. High altitude hypersonic aircraft what few are being conceived are going turbojet/scramjet hybrids which are simpler, adapted SR-71 engine developments or more conceptually hybrid turbine rotating detonation engines which would offer the best power/efficiency combination if they can make it work.
The USAF was interested in the Sabre engine for aircraft application but the other solutions (apart from rotating detonation) would be more mature, cheaper and simpler solutions, RD the most efficiency and all American offerings of course. Canada and New Zealand have scaled test vehicles the former incorporating a simpler hybrid solution the latter a rocket solution. Sabre as a complete engine sadly while needing a lot of investment and time due to its innately novel solution is really best suited to a ground to space vehicle but the Earths size and thick atmosphere means such a vehicle is at the limits of its ability to achieve this, multi stage rockets are a better, cheaper and more mature option. At least they are now, simply due to reusability so a single stage to orbit with present technology is just no longer worth the development costs and risk, iable or otherwise.
Reaction Engines proved the pre cooler works, it ran at Rolls Royce on an existing jet engine at sustained Mach 3+ Performance, this combination was always going to to be the initial offering of the technology, transformation into rocket mode was the longer term ideal that had yet to be tested. Now you can argue as to whether the stage they had reached ie pre cooler combined with traditional jet engine cores was going to prove long term reliable enough to prove competitive in its present state but you can’t, based on the information released (unless you have some inside information) that the technology doesn’t actually work.
Who acquired the reaction engine IPs?
The IP is currently controlled by the administrator PWC but no one seems very interested in it.
We have had several former RE employees on here comment before that they are not surprised. The technology was ambitious and decades were spent as well as millions of pounds of public and private money developing it but in the end it just did not work.
“We have had several former RE employees on here comment”.
With respect, anyone can comment on here and claim they are anyone they like.
Some here claim to be experts on every single subject… I have serious doubts personally.
Even God turned up a couple of days ago.
😂🌞 nice sunny day. Happy Sunday all!
Yes that’s true however the two people commenting seemed very credible and neither had an axe to grind. They just stated that they had worked for company many years ago (one was an intern) and they were not surprised when the bankruptcy announcement was made as they said their was several issue (primarily freezing of condensed water vapour) that seems insurmountable to them.
I don’t think Reaction Engines need to become a modern day TSR2 myth, it just didn’t work, it’s that simple.
One persons “Seemed very credible” is another persons obvious fake persona.
God knows there are so many of them on here.
Both Rolls Royce and BAE believed enough in Reaction Engines to put their own money into it, along with successive governments. The problem is we have risk averse financers and officials. If we had been given the blueprints for a spacex rocket handed to us on a plate we would have torn them up the first time one blew up. We need to get over the idea that a failed experiment/test is a waste of money. Everything that makes up the modern world is the result of multitudes of failed experiments and tests. Particularly important for the defence industry were the ability to quickly develop, experiment and test wins wars.
Actually multiple British finance companies including Baillie Gifford invested in it.
Again it just didn’t work there is no conspiracy, it was a promising technology that just didn’t deliver. Most research projects are the same.
If it had worked it would have gotten more money if not from the UK then from others
The fact that no one is beating down PWC’s door for the IP tells you all you need to know.
Yes I certainly haven’t come across anyone posting on here claiming to be a RE employee or provable that they were. There is massive nuance here anyway, there is a range of technology involved some of which certainly did work, as I keep saying the only argument was whether it would work to a high enough degree of reliability in real world scenarios. For instance did WW2 German jet engines work? Absolutely they did work but didn’t work remotely well enough in that time period in terms of reliability and thus resources to make them viable technology overall, Big difference emphasised by Britain even with more reliable equivalents deemed the technology best reserved for post war exploitation and as such the MetroVick engine though flown in Meteors was held back, never put into full production but did form the basis of successful post war designs. And then the question posed is can they (German jet designs or equivalent technology) be made viable within a useful timetable, to a big enough effect or would resources be better utilised elsewhere.
These things are not black and white answers and as I have often stated the overall Sabre design was a technology waiting for a purpose and its major use analysis settle around single stage to orbit and reusability. Sadly reusability of rocketry now ruined its cost benefits when balanced against the payload it could carry v rockets. Fact is it no longer adds up while the investment was going to be enormous and such a vehicle to use Sabre engines remained concepts only and taking it further to big a risk. Sabre was a long way from moving from jet to rocket mode so how successful it would be remains in question but for anything other than surface to orbit there were other better or cheaper suited solutions available I’m afraid. So I nor does Jim know if the Sabre could be made to work within the parameters I lay out here but the problem was that even if it did work it simply would not have had a viable market to give a return on investment its market was being squeezed from all sides and hybrid engines being developed for hypersonic flight are presently, cheaper options, more mature options, perhaps more reliable options or offer in the case of rotating detonation a more efficient potential use of fuel in rocket mode. I’m sure more of the truth will come out in the end, certainly other companies do have licences for some of the technology but again time will tell if any prove practical in the end, I know Mercedes was hoping to exploit the pre colder for is electric vehicles and battery farms for cooling.
Quote them.
There was a rather memorable few posts a while back ref the QE Coupling issue…. They seemed convincing enough and seemingly so convincing that their comments were deleted pretty soon after.
It’s par for the coarse on these sites though.
They did however have legitimate and useful heat exchanger/precooler/intercooler tech, which they developed as a prereq need for the engines they wanted to build because those things need cooling
Quite.
That was the part that seemed to work and interested RR as a method of improving the performance of ordinary military jet engines.
If they actually had that someone would be buying then out of branruptcy for the few million it would cost.
Jim it’s not that simple is it.
Not being able to build a SSTO isn’t the same thing as the technology not working. Apparently there was something to do with capillary tubes for heat exchangers that Maclaren used in F1, so I imagine the really interesting bit (the precooler) has value beyond SABRE itself.
Well exactly and as I have said Mercedes for one has licensing agreements for that as do others I believe which makes selling of the company let alone IP rather more complex than throwing a few million at it. The company itself has no real value, the Sabre good idea or otherwise is dead certainly for any foreseeable future so its technologies within that may or may not have value and extractability for a potentially buyer. We know the pre cooler works, RR ran an engine on a test bed with it at Mach 3 + and it was claimed as a successful test, not long before it was announced the Company went into liquidation so matters clearly aren’t simply black and white. Long term viability of any technology is a vital factor and the pre cooler was a very complex piece of kit that may well have had longevity issues, that is the only factor that might have offered up the question of working or not.
As long as we retain IP rights I would consider this good progress. Hard to know and harder to trust whether we do of course.
We never owned the IP rights, RE engines creditors own them and no one seems very interested in buying them.
The rights that were not secured.
It’s a shame the SABRE engine didn’t work out. I really hoped it would.
The UK should start partnering with Europeans to be on equal terms, get a bigger slice of the pie, with equal partners and become independent of the US for arms.
Europe has just a good engineering talent and companies, we just need to work together, to create Eu SA & Eu jobs.
von Braun was German.
Von Braun had no ethics or a conscience. So many innocent people were killed by his inventions and he gave not one single care.
By that logic no one should invent anything. Von Braun was a scientist and engineer not a politician. Do you think people who invented small commercial drones for hobbyists thought Ukrainians and Russians would use them to kill each other in ever more inventive ways, often far from the contact line. No they did not, doesn’t stop them from making them though. For another example did the men who invented commercial refineries think napalm would be the happy accident?
You’re overlooking Von Braun joined both the Nazi party and the SS, eventually rising to Major. He also planned and oversaw quality control at Mittelwerk where V1s and V2s were produced. Its workforce was slave-labour from a concentration camp.
It wasn’t a case of his innocent work on rockets being misused for war, the way you suggest. He had no issues with assisting the Nazis in developing and producing weapons designed for use against civilian targets.
Spot on it’s why once the moon landing was completed and his war history revealed he was ‘eased’ out of the programme. Like it or not he was an active party member and played an important role in SS activities including the slave Labour. It was very much like so many others covered up by the US and allies generally while they were needed.
but Colt made all men equal by making 6 shooters 🙂
Sorry, he is a poor example. Also to the rest below.
My point is that Europe, do have both engineering talent & companies, that can compete with US, if we want it. Due to Trump, this has increased.
To suggest that rel technology nor sabre engine “didn’t work” is baseless opinion formulated on guff. 1. The Sabre engine initial test campaign was validated by ESA. 2. The precooler also validated by ESA and parts of it fitted to F1 cars today. 3. Skylon airframe and aerodynamics reviewed and validated (with suggestions) by NASA in 2015. Clearly a significant scaling issue occurred, I’m informed the required finance to overcome this hurdle were not secured. The hapless MD attempted to finance development via commercial engineering solutions and utilising capability to facilitate precooler wider applications. This revenue was never going to deliver the returns investors demanded nor the capital to invest in the principle project. This strategy diverted engineering focus away from development. It’s no coincidence the opening of the US REL test site and involvement of the US saw a US hypersonic space plane start up suddenly appear. It’s also no coincidence concerning the suggested connection between SABRE and DAPR/MOD hypersonic announcement. To blissfully deny the obvious as conspiracy, having read the ESA and NASA validation studies, is either a loathing of spaceplane concept (space x /tesla) fan boi, or total ignorance based on a feeling.
Yes, it’s clearly all a conspiracy, I don’t know why I did not see that before 🤔
The US stole our space plane technology then gave it to some non existent start up company just to mess with us.
😀
No Jim but it’s about you making a black and white claim with no evidence presented whatsoever when what facts we have simply don’t align with your claim. Sorry but it’s true. Ed actually offered evidence you have never offered in return thus no doubt your conspiracy jibe when you have nothing better to offer.
However the engine tests as I state above for this programme do not seem to have anything obvious related to Reaction Engines SME have been working on scramjet technology which for missiles is the logical propulsion. Whether any Sabre based IP or tech is involved in addition is purely speculative, but worth noting scramjets per se don’t really need the pre cooler technology themselves though we know little about the engine the article relates too and whether it is a hybrid engine beyond a base scramjet/ramjet. There are various possibilities.
Hermeus. Is the non-existent hypersonic start up which utilises a pre cooler, airframe looks strikingly familiar and sprang up following the opening of REL US test campaign.
The US engaged is state sponsored industrial espionage and IP theft since it’s foundation. The powered loom, steam engine, light bulb being famous examples. I’ve written a article on this on my x page. The US gobbled up the cavity magnetron, jet engine and nuclear weapons (tube alloys) via the begging bowl campaign named Tizzard Mission. They betrayed us on the nuclear agreement Post ww2 and claimed full credit. Attlee was forced to start from scratch which cost billions. The US military industrial complex and wider economy profited by the Trillions with acquired British and Nazi knowledge and technology Post ww2. Forget the US dropping its pants and screwing us on exports for TSR2, what about the Miles m.52 rip off? More Recently we have seen ARM sold after initially being refused by government to be sold to Nvidia on competition grounds. Softbank then completed purchase, on the promises it would remain UK listed, betrayed. Oh and turned out Nvidia had 45% stake in buyout. Monopoly? Fair free trade? US never manipulate market, never aquire ip, it’s nuts to suggest otherwise. Do you think the sale of Inmarsat was in UK national interest? Do you think the protectionist US trade policies would ever permit the sale vice versa? Over 80% market share since the inmarsat sale, is that good for competition? IP acquisition? What about Google deepmind? It’s all conspiracy nuts 🤪 right! It never happened
“ The hapless MD attempted to finance development via commercial engineering solutions and utilising capability to facilitate precooler wider applications. This revenue was never going to deliver the returns investors demanded nor the capital to invest in the principle project. This strategy diverted engineering focus away from development.”
Maybe but if you’ve got something commercial and saleable you validate it and sell it.
Having namely customers helps raises! Sometimes the namely customers are plugged into other finance.
His coal might have been a spin out that could be sold? That could have raised a chunk….these are all valid board thought processes.
But all speculation: on my part!
His goal was obviously an attempt to deliver liquidity for r&d and to pay the bills but the mountain which was required to establish the supply chain to build the heat shielding compound, fuel tanks, turbines, even landing strip and fuel was BILLIONS. £10M hear and their was never going to touch the sides, commercialising niche products which essentially can be easily replicated once in possession is and never will deliver the Billions required.
T. Halken, did the UK get a fair slice of the pie when we were in the EU? How much of European capability is based on technology transfers from the various consolidated, nationalised, privatised, re nationalised UK aerospace greats which were swallowed up in European mergers? Tell me what was the basis for the Ariane Rocket? Please tell me how it’s in British interests to have our nuclear power owned by the French state? Or how Simens gobbled up the majority of UK turbine sector? Many EU member states (backed by the machine itself) pick and choose when free market economics suits, and when state subsided protectionism and monopolising fits the goal best. The UK falls victim to our Anglo saxon trading system from both the EU and USA. CANZUK is our future. The EU showed its true colours when it was happy to hide behind UK- Ukraine stance, military capability and nuclear arsenal but not happy enough to permit UK participation in pooled defence procurement.
Actually we had a very fair deal from the EU. It was so good the leavers feel they have to insult our neighbours and allies at every opportunity to try and stop the country reuniting.
Im not insulting anyone.
Im not insulting anyone. All I’ve said is what has happened. The EU hiding behind UK nukes, UK leadership on Ukraine since the onset, and military capabilities in one hand, and at a time of war punitively excluding UK from defence procurement pool. During our membership we experienced protectionist market practice which saw our energy sector gobbled up by France, Germany and Spain as part of EU strategy to mitigate lack of oil and ng production, we have seen vast chunks of British industry hoovered up, to fit the soviet style EU industrial zoning strategy. European aerospace conglomerates profited from British areospace industrial collapse manipulated and screwed in part by US protectionist trade policies and massive subsidy. The first stage of the first Ariane rocket was essentially British. Gifted to Europe following the UK stepping away from an independent orbital capability.
Who’s addiction to cheap Russian gas and lacklustre at best, complicit at worst response to the invasion of Georgia, then Crimea, German led EU. Coupled with a clumsy eastern expansion policy. Was this the deal? Was this the reason behind EU appeasement? Or was it just about cheap gas? Either way the all mighty, whollier than now GERMAN led EU is sacrosanct. It’s a gleaming example of tolerance and is not largely represented within member states with far right, even extreme right wing politics, the likes which make Reform look like hippies. Remainiacs are on the war path to subvert democracy in total denial of the harm the EU has caused us and the world. It’s not offensive nor biggotted to voice an argument or opinion just because you don’t like it. It’s called freedom.