At the International Academy of Astronautics' symposium on private human access to space, on Thursday, Mark Hempsell of the University of Bristol, and a consultant to Culham, Oxfordshire based-Reaction Engines, which designed Skylon, set out a business plan for an orbital service. He also showed how orbital rescue could be conducted by Skylon vehicles and a detaile design for the passenger module, which could be swopped out for a payload module - see extended section for related images
Hi,
I would like to ask how such SKYLON spaceplane can make reentry from orbit to desired return spaceport having any additional electric thrusters for space manuevers as well as having any ablative materials for reentry thermal heating of its body?
Regards
Andrew
I have to admit I can't remember asking the Skylon guys about the TPS but I think it would just use a reaction control system like Shuttle for attitude changes. There are two versions of the Reaction Engines design, the suborbital London to Sydney trip in 90min version and the Mach25 orbiter version. What is currently called the A2, the Reaction Engine design for the ESA hypersonics projects, has been praised by the ESA people I know. That is some achievement in itself.