Reaction Engines' hypersonic hopes stall as funding fizzles out

173 jobs gone after air-breathing rocket project loses lift

Updated Aerospace specialist Reaction Engines has gone into administration, potentially taking with it the dreams of hypersonic aircraft powered by its hybrid air-breathing rocket engine tech.

The company is a privately owned engineering research biz that operated for more than 30 years. Its major focus was the development of SABRE (Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine), said to combine the fuel efficiency of a jet engine with the power and high speed offered by rockets.

It had been hoped that SABRE would lead to a new generation of hypersonic spaceplanes, but on October 31, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was appointed as administrator after the company was unable to secure further funding.

PwC told us Reaction Engines was primarily funded by grants and equity fundraising rounds, given its R&D focus. The company was pursuing opportunities to raise additional investment, however, these were unsuccessful and the directors had no option but to place it into administration.

"It's with great sadness that a pioneering company with a 35-year history of spearheading aerospace innovation has unfortunately been unable to raise the funding required to continue operations," PwC partner and joint administrator Sarah O'Toole said in a statement to The Register.

"We know this is a deeply uncertain and unsettling time for the company's talented and dedicated employees. We are committed to providing them with all the necessary support at this time."

The administrators will retain some Reaction Engines employees at its head office in Culham, Oxfordshire, to complete a number of existing orders and support winding down operations. However, this meant immediate redundancy for 173 out of the 208 staff.

SABRE is an exotic design, described as an air-breathing rocket engine. It allows an aircraft to take off from a runway as normal, then travel at velocities of about five times the speed of sound in the atmosphere. Switching over to liquid oxygen, a spaceplane using SABRE engines was envisioned as accelerating to Mach 25 to go beyond the atmosphere and into orbit.

The innovative precooler technology, one of the three core building blocks of SABRE, was tested in 2019. This is necessary because the air entering the engine would otherwise be hot enough to melt steel, thanks to the effects of friction and compression. Testing of the core engine components and preburner took place during 2020 and 2021.

Visitors to the Reaction Engines website will find the home page redirects to PwC, but the rest of the site still appears to be up, including pages on the SABRE engine technology.

According to the Financial Times, Reaction Engines had warned investors earlier this year that it needed to raise additional money. It was in talks with shareholders over a £20 million ($25 million) cash injection for several weeks, while some of its strategic backers such as aerospace and defense giant BAE Systems and aero engine maker Rolls-Royce are said to have been reluctant to commit to more funding.

The FT also noted that several Formula One racing teams could be hit by the demise of Reaction Engines as its precooler technology is used as part of the cooling system for the engines in their cars.

Questions are now likely to be raised regarding the intellectual property of Reaction Engines, which may be sold off if the company itself cannot be saved.

Furthermore, the UK Space Agency made a £3.9 million ($5 million) grant to the company in 2021 to support the development of the SABRE engine technology. We asked the agency why it did not step up to help save Reaction Engines, and will update if we get a response. ®

Updated at 15.41 UTC on Friday November 1, 2024, to add:

Following publication of this article, a spokesperson for UK government sent us a statement:

"While this is a commercial decision for the company, we understand this will be a concerning time for workers at Reaction Engines and their families, and support is available to those affected."