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Rolls-Royce invests in partner helping develop supersonic and hypersonic engines

Published: 11:23 21 Aug 2020 BST

Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC -
How Virgin's supersonic aircraft is expected to look

Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (LON:RR.) shares rose after the engine-maker signed a new strategic agreement with a company developing cooling technology for supersonic and hypersonic flights.

The FTSE 100 group said it has increased its investment in Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines, reported as being a further £20mln equity stake, as part of a partnership to develop new high-speed hypersonic propulsion systems for civil and defence aircraft.

Rolls-Royce, which first invested in Reaction Engines in 2018, said the partnership “will further assist us as we explore opportunities in supersonic and hypersonic aviation”.

Last month Rolls was signed up by Virgin Galactic to help design and develop engine technology for a supersonic commercial aeroplane.

Almost two decades since Concorde stopped flying, the UK engine maker is also working with US-based Boom Supersonic on designs for its 'Overture' supersonic plan, one of several in development as a handful of companies aim to bring supersonic flights back to the skies in or around 2023.

These planes would cut a flight from London to New York to just 90 minutes, with Boeing even having talked of a hypersonic project that would get you from Sydney to San Francisco in just under two hours.

Reaction Engines chief executive Mark Thomas told specialist title FlightGlobal that a stronger relationship with Rolls-Royce will run parallel to its ongoing work to develop SABRE, the Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine that it hopes will enable a runway take-off and landing spaceplane to reach orbit without discarding rocket stages.

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