Hopelijk kan dit er snel komen... gaat wel de toekomst van ruimtevaart veranderen denk ik.

Skylon is a design for an unpiloted spaceplane by the British company Reaction Engines Limited (REL). It uses a combined-cycle, air-breathing rocket engine to reach orbit in a single stage. A fleet of vehicles is envisaged; the design is aiming for re-usability up to 200 times. In paper studies, the costs per kilogram of payload are hoped to be lowered from the current £15,000/kg to £650/kg (as of 2011),[3] including the costs of research and development (R&D), with costs expected to fall much more over time after the initial expenditures have amortised.[2] The cost of the programme has been estimated by the developer to be about $12 billion.

The vehicle design is for a hydrogen-powered aircraft that would take off from a conventional runway, and accelerate to Mach 5.4 at 26 kilometres (16 mi) altitude using atmospheric air before switching the engines to use the internal liquid oxygen (LOX) supply to take it to orbit.[4] It would then release its payload, which can weigh up to 15 tonnes, and re-enter the atmosphere. The payload would be carried in a standardised payload container or passenger compartment.

During re-entry the relatively light vehicle would fly back through the atmosphere and land back at the runway, with its skin protected by a ceramic composite. It would then undergo inspection and any necessary maintenance and, if the design goal is achieved, be able to fly again within two days. As of 2010, only a small portion of the funding required to develop and build Skylon has been secured. The research and development work on the SABRE engine design is proceeding under a small European Space Agency (ESA) grant. In January 2011, REL submitted a proposal to the British Government to request additional funding for the Skylon project. In April 2011, REL announced that they had secured $350 million of further funding contingent on a test of the engine's precooler technology being successful. Testing began in June 2011, and was expected to continue to the end of that year.[5] However, testing was delayed until April 2012 [6


wiki


en engine test