Unlike jet engines, which are only capable of powering a vehicle up to Mach 3, three times the speed of sound, SABRE engines are capable of Mach 5.4 in air-breathing mode, and Mach 25 in rocket mode for space flight. They are simply going to revolutionise the way we travel around the globe, and into orbit. Like jet engines, SABRE can be scaled in size to provide difference levels of thrust for different applications which is crucial to our success - it's going to enable a whole generation of air and space vehicles.

There are three core building blocks to the SABRE engine, the pre-cooler, the engine core and the thrust chamber. Each of these systems can be developed and validated using ground based demonstrations which saves cost and time relative to flight test, a design feature that benefitted the development of the propeller and jet engine, We plan to demonstrate each of these independently over the next four years, beginning with a high temperature test of the pre cooler in 2017.