British aerospace firm Reaction Engines, known for its hypersonic propulsion and cooling technologies, has ceased operations after failing to secure a financial lifeline.
The collapse has significant implications for the UK’s Hypersonic Air Vehicle Experimental (HVX) program, where Reaction Engines played a central role in developing reusable, high-speed vehicles.
The company was integral to the £1 billion Hypersonic Technologies & Capability Development Framework (HTCDF), aimed at delivering the UK’s first hypersonic missile. Their work on the Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) and advanced cooling technologies was critical to this objective.
UK accelerates hypersonic missile development with £1bn plan
Following protracted negotiations for financial support, including an unsuccessful bid for £20 million from the UAE’s Strategic Development Fund, Reaction Engines entered administration, with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) now handling proceedings. Analysts are concerned that Reaction Engines’ exit could hinder the UK’s hypersonic ambitions, given the niche expertise required in this field.
Only in August, Reaction Engines had reported a significant milestone: it integrated its proprietary precooler technology with existing jet-engine components during ground-based testing.
This setup achieved sustained Mach 3.5 conditions, simulating the performance required for hypersonic air vehicles and matching the top airspeed of the legendary SR-71 aircraft. The trial, which incorporated a modified Rolls-Royce jet engine, successfully reached speeds exceeding Concorde’s limits and underscored the company’s progress towards reusable, high-speed flight.
Reaction Engines was also developing intake technologies and preparing for further ground-based tests at high-Mach conditions, coupled with wind-tunnel experiments to gauge intake performance in various supersonic scenarios. “This milestone is a testament to our efforts to create innovative, reusable propulsion systems for hypersonic air vehicles,” said CEO Mark Thomas at the time, noting the broader applications of their heat-exchanger technology across different mission profiles.
Ouch…really ouch…
The fact that tech this good is un-investable in the UK says something very painful about the way the UK is looked at as an investment space.
Ironic that Bond himself in a speech in 2016 stated just that, risk was no longer of interest to the City or UK investors. Hermann Hauser who helped create arm said pretty much the same thing just a few years back when his former company was seemingly headed from Japanese to US ownership.
UK fund managers including Ballie Gifford pumped millions into this. It just doesn’t work.
No amount of Union jacks on the front will make it work.
They have been trying to get it to works since the 80’s with limited success after spending a lot of money.
Well, apart from the fact that they have demonstrated that it does work.
They demonstrated it partially works on a test stand. That’s a million miles away from a commercial product.
If the tech was that good do you not think the range of UK and foreign companies and governments who already invested would not have put in more?
The tech doesn’t work, move on, no point in throwing good money after bad. RE got lots of money from multiple sources more in the UK than they could have gotten in any other country other than the USA and they also have a US subsidiary funded by the DoD that’s also going bust.
They literally made a 1950s Goblin engine, a frankly puny bit of kit, function and run in the same conditions as if it was at Mach 3.5 by precooling the air.
That’s like running the SR71 off a Nene.
They had a programme and a timeline to hypersonic flight, they just needed support and they didn’t get it.
Surely this would be in the governments interest to step in?
Oh dear this is shocking and depressing. No doubt yet more to add to the long line of our technology that will now no doubt end up in foreign hands. Interestingly only saw an American video yesterday stating how despite various efforts only Sabre had of hybrid engine concepts had so far been able to demonstrate a surface to space single stage capability. Oh well let the vultures circle.
Exactly it is the only viable tech that has surfaced.
Space X projected price for starship is an order of magnitude cheaper than anything RE were ever looking at with SKYLON.
Single stage to orbit is not a big deal if you have starship.
Reusing the first stage that is involved in hypersonic atmospheric flight is already standard practice on falcon 9.
Skylon has nothing to do with it that was purely, a theoretical proposal to engage the imaginations of aerospace companies and the next generation of engineers. As for Space X this is a pet subject of mine so let’s say while I marvel at the impressive visuals I have learned not to drink Musk’s blindsiding Koolaid. After all unlike those who actually run the company and are indeed rocket scientists and who generally keep away from exorbitant claims he spews rediculous deadlines and potential achievements that are still a very long way from being realistic let alone achieved. For example… Read more »
Will be bought by BAE or Rolls-Royce I am sure
We hope so.
The American will be circling which would be terrible news.
Sadly true I suspect, it’s not after all unusual for companies to gain more from letting a company they cooperate with to fail so that they can pick up whatever technology and Intellectual they desire. Interestingly RR even in wartime thanks to Rover’s incompetence took advantage and deliberately sabotaged PowerJets to take control of the jet engine technology they knew was the future. Problem is that even if REs technologies are sound or have potential with US State sponsored competitors entering the fray an independent RE was always perhaps going to be a problem to finance certainly as a uk… Read more »
Alas more likely it will be chopped up and sold for parts, they will want the precooler tech not the small UK manufacturing facility or employees.
outstandingly shit positon by the govt, the money could come from anywhere, MoD, UKSA, finance loans, etc etc.This new ‘national wealth fund’ etc.
Yep most likely outcome like so many of our hi tech businesses before them.
According to an article by Aviation week, “negotiations failed after Reaction’s strategic shareholders BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce backed out of providing sufficient bridging capital.”
Indeed. That doesn’t mean they’d allow their competitors to acquire the IP however. In fact, this may very well be a ploy to acquire the IP on the cheap
You know what… That also entered my mind as well when I saw that sentence. However, you would think they would swoop in before the appointed admin company approached the UAE company. The pre-cooler was also meant to be used in the Cranfield hydrogen engine, so something interesting as a pre-cooler would acquired by the DFTL.
This is a major disaster, if government had any sense, they would rescue this company rather than spaffing money on the NHS.
The fact that this has been allowed to happen truly sickens me and that the UAE was allowed to look at buying it! An old saying is the only appropriate one truly: THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM.
Do be sick, everyone in Britain from BAE to RR had already given them money, multiple UK fund managers, the British and American governments had already given them money.
They were hoping someone in the Middle East would be daft enough to give them money.
Their tech just domestic work well enough to produce a viable product.
Aah I see you have sensibly added the very pertinent ‘well enough’ this time. Fact is it is always a question of whether the risk, financials, timescale, reliability, business sense et al makes it worthwhile in investor’s minds rather than whether the technology simply has legs or not. That’s proved by fact for this technology originally came out of RR, they backed it, dropped it and then in the last decade backed it again before it seems now, dropping it again. But the potential of the technologies involved may still have a future and it will be interested to see… Read more »
Before we all blame the government, it should be noted that Skylon’s role was made obsolete by Musk’s Starship. Skylon still needed alot of infrastructure to work, and could never carry the vast payload Musk’s spacecraft could. There’s also some technical issues regarding their use of hydrogen over methane as a propellant. So they started looking for pre-cooler applications in other sectors, but the demand does not seem to have been there. Reaction Engines made lots of interesting strides in development, but ultimately there was not enough “stuff” to sell. Hopefully RR get all the tech, but I’m not holding… Read more »
Exactly
Skylin is not the story – hasn’t been the story for years.
Hypersonic missiles with serious ranges, that real aircraft can lift to launch, are the story
Massively increasing the efficiency of jet engines and cooling radars is also part of the story.
Agreed.
People are getting bogged down in RE’s pipe dream Skylon without considering the real benefits of SABRE and the really incredible heat exchanger tech they’ve developed and are now realising has all sorts of side uses.
.
I’m not going to add to what I have already said about Starship but it has serious hurdles to get through despite Musks delusional bravado. It’s no where near a reusable platform as yet and would be the most expensive way to get stuff into orbit as single use oh anf that’s LEO by the way it can’t as things stand go higher. Watch out for other companies like a Rocket Lab (and worryingly the Chinese) who are developing reusable systems, the former could be a serious rival for Space-X’s bread and butter income with Falcon using its new 3D… Read more »
Very sensible take, this reflects the viability of the business model of RE rather than a B and W assessment of the technologies, at least till we know better. If the technologies have potential they will be absorbed. However you must stop going on about Skylon that was never more than a pr move to gain traction in the media and inspire ideas from others it was never the fundamental aim of RE itself though many have presumed it was. I think in the end with hybrid competes forming and backed by Govts it was always going to be high… Read more »
According to Aviation Week, BAE System and Rolls Royce backed out, and “Cranfield Aerospace Solutions, planned to use a version of the same micro-tube heat exchanger design in a modified hydrogen fuel-cell powered Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander zero emissions demonstrator program.”
Only in the UK!
This is just the latest example of a country that has failed to invest in UK-developed technological innovation since the 1950’s.
Every industry where the UK once lead is now waning (or deceased).
Yes, except gas turbines, wings, bio technology, satellites and low micro processors.
The solution is obvious, for the government to take a stake in the company. What they needed was chump change
Well that’s no surprise They have been at it so long It’s Awfull slow progress Some company will snap it up for peanuts
If they scrap Reaction Engines there will be no Tempest.
I remember hearing about this company early on and my initial thoughts were, this company will fail and the government will let it. A bit like the HOTAL project. RR’s mini reactors, MG Rover, Blue Flame etc. Rather than being forward thinking our Labour and Tories governments refuse to back these firms, and they usually end up in foreign hands. But this one has national security implications, a British tech firm must be the only buyer for this to be allowed to go to. The government must step in for once and rescue this tech project!