Will BAE Systems Make UK The Next Major Space-Faring Nation?

With the 20-percent purchase of Reaction Engines, will BAE Systems soon make the UK the next major space-faring nation?

By: Ringo Bones 

Well, at least in the near future, BAE Systems could sell to Virgin CEO Richard Branson a space tourism “aerospace-plane” that’s more reliable than the Virgin Galactic Space Ship Two, but as BAE Systems purchases 20-percent of Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines for UK£20.6-million in a deal that will see the defence giant’s expertise applied to research on a privately held company’s engine, which combines jet and rocket technology.     

Nigel Whitehead, managing director at BAE Systems, said: “The potential for this engine is incredible. I feel like we’re in the same position as the people who were the first to consider putting a propeller on an internal combustion engine: we understand that there are amazing possibilities but don’t fully understand what they are, as we just can’t imagine them all. It could be very high speed flight, low-cost launches into orbit or other fantastic achievements.” 

For 20 years, Reaction Engines has been developing its Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) which works like a conventional jet engine while in the Earth’s atmosphere, sucking in oxygen-rich air to burn with its hydrogen fuel. However, once it hits hypersonic speed starting at five times the speed of sound – about 4,000 mph or three-times the speed of a typical hunting rifle bullet – in the thin upper atmosphere, it switches over to become a conventional liquid-fueled rocket engine using the liquid oxygen that it carries as the oxidizer to burn with its hydrogen fuel. The ability to switch between two very different modes of operation means that the SABRE engine system is lighter than existing conventional liquid fuel rocket engines which have to carry much more liquid oxygen in its operation where used up tanks are then jettisoned. 

Reaction Engine’s SABRE’s technological tour-de-force is the development of a proprietary heat exchanger which cools the air going into the engine to a level where it is almost liquid before it is ignited, allowing the SABRE engine to swap between jet and rocket modes. The proprietary heat exchanger can cool hot air from more than 1,000 degrees Celsius to minus 150 degrees Celsius in less than 1/100 of a second. With further research and funding, the UK would be able to operate its own practical aerospace plane that can send astronauts to low Earth orbit at a much reduced operational costs than NASA’s Space Shuttle or those Russian rockets launched at Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Do Civilian Airliners Need Military Style Countermeasures?

In the wake of the “accidental” shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over rebel-held east Ukrainian last July 18, 2014, is there a need for military style countermeasures in civilian planes?

By: Ringo Bones

Even though an ongoing investigation has yet to determine whether the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 by a Russian made BUK / SAM surface-to-air missile over the pro Russian rebel held eastern Ukrainian airspace back in July 18, 2014 is accidental or deliberate, the world’s airline industry has since contemplated whether civilian passenger planes now need military style protection systems. Given the capabilities of your typical military style surface-to-air-missile or other anti-aircraft weapons systems, is the concept even technically feasible in planes now in current use on airline companies?

Ever since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, the heightened airport boarding and on-board security on passenger planes by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, TSA and other security agencies have since made hijackings of planes and crashing them into buildings a thing of the past. But back in July 18, 2014, the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 flying at around 595 miles per hour 32,000 feet over east Ukrainian airspace by a surface-to-air missile that can fly over 2,000 miles per hour and can shoot down a plane flying up to 70,000 feet raised a yet unprecedented aspect on the safety of civilian air travel yet again.

Inexplicably since 9/11, the ongoing War on Terror has seem to have sent the global defense industry on a decline since Al Qaeda and other similar groups doesn’t have an air force equipped with supersonic capable fighter planes. Thus the bulk of the military aviation related spending of the War on Terror centers around military transport planes similar to the Lockheed Martin’s C-130 Hercules – like the Airbus A400M Military Transport that can carry well-armed infantry troops to the terrorist’s strongholds as opposed to engaging Osama Bin Laden in a dogfight 70,000 feet above Kandahar.

Even though military transport planes with a similar flight envelope to your typical civilian airliner had been equipped with various countermeasures – i.e. aluminum chaff and magnesium flare dispensers - that enable them to evade surface-to-air missiles since the height of the Cold War, these SAM countermeasures have yet to find their way to an Airbus or a Boeing passenger plane owned by a commercial airline company. Near the end of the 2014 Farnborough Air Show, British aerospace firm BAE Systems said that the civilian aviation industry needs military style protection in the wake of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 back in July 18, 2014. But even though the idea of installing military style countermeasures on civilian airliners is technically feasible will it be economically viable from the airline company’s perspective? Or is this just another way for aerospace firms to make money in the post 9/11 world? Maybe civilian airlines will now start to have their radar intercept officers to avoid them being brought down by radar guided "beam-rider" SAMs.