Skylon is a series of designs for a
single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane by the
British company
Reaction Engines Limited (REL), using
SABRE, a combined-cycle,
air-breathing rocket propulsion system. The vehicle design is for a
hydrogen-fuelled aircraft that would take off from a purpose-built
runway, and accelerate to
Mach 5.4 at 26 kilometres (85,000
ft) altitude (compared to typical airliners' 9–13 kilometres or 30,000–40,000 feet) using the
atmosphere's oxygen before switching the engines to use the internal
liquid oxygen (LOX) supply to take it into orbit. It could carry 17 tonnes (37,000
lb) of cargo to an equatorial
low Earth orbit (LEO); up to 11 tonnes (24,000
lb) to the
International Space Station, almost 45% more than the capacity of the
European Space Agency's
Automated Transfer Vehicle; or 7.3 tonnes; 7,300 kilograms (16,000
lb) to
Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO), over 24% more than
SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle in reusable mode (As of 2018
[update].) The relatively light vehicle would then
re-enter the atmosphere and land on a runway, being protected from the conditions of re-entry by a
ceramic composite skin. When on the ground, it would undergo inspection and necessary maintenance, with a turnaround time of approximately two days, and be able to complete at least 200 orbital flights per vehicle.
Robert Laurel "Bob" Crippen (born September 11, 1937), (
Capt,
USN, Ret.), is a retired
American naval officer and
aviator,
test pilot,
aerospace engineer, and former
astronaut for the
United States Department of Defense and for
NASA.
An aviator with the U.S. Navy, Crippen was originally chosen to the U.S. Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, a project involving a military space station, in 1966. When that project was canceled in 1969, Crippen was transferred to NASA. He was selected as pilot of the first Space Shuttle mission, STS-1, along with commander John Young, which he flew on April 12-14, 1981, on the orbiter Columbia.
Crippen would likewise become the first Shuttle pilot to be promoted to commander, leading the STS-7 mission on orbiter Challenger in June 1983. He would command two other missions (STS-41-C and STS-41-G) in 1984. He was training for another mission when the Challenger disaster occurred, and was re-assigned as Deputy Director of Kennedy Space Center in 1987.
Crippen would serve as the Director of Kennedy Space Center from January 1992 until January 1995, when he left NASA. He would hold executive positions at Lockheed Martin and Thiokol before retiring in 2001.