ESA prepares for a hypersonic leap. Invictus is his letter to compete with China and the USA on extreme flights

Just a couple of decades ago, take off from a conventional track and fly five times faster than sound seemed reserved for science fiction. Today, the European Space Agency (ESA) He wants to pave that path with Invictusa Experimental hypersonic platform that could transform the way the old continent accesses space.

Invictus is not a missile neither a military plane nor a vertical pitcher. It is an aircraft concept conceived to fly to Mach 5, take off horizontally and return intact to be reused. Its modular structure – you must exchange materials, motors and software – will allow to test very different configurations throughout several campaigns.

We are talking about a program funded through instruments such as General support technology program (GSTP) and the Element of Technological Development (Tde) of ESA. The key is to provide Europe with its own technological base on a land dominated by the United States and China.

The great enemy is not speed: it is the scoring temperature

Reaching Mach 5 does not depend only on engine power. The great obstacle is thermal: friction on the fuselage raises the external temperature to Extreme levels and converts incoming oxygen into a gas that cannot be compressed or used directly.

In this sense, Invictus will integrate an engine Early Hydrogen fed, whose thermal exchanger will be able to cool air at more than 1,000 ° C in dozens of milliseconds. “It will provide an invaluable opportunity to test the entire motor flow route, from air intake to the postquemor, at a real scale in an integrated aircraft,” David Perigo, chief engineer of ESA said.

Technology does not start from zero. Reaction Engines developed KNOWan atmospheric-aorbital hybrid engine supported in its day by ESA. After the entry in company administration in 2024, part of its team and intellectual property went to Frazer-NASH, which now moves that know-how To Invictus. What were previously laboratory tests will be integrated for the first time into a complete and reusable aircraft, a key step towards European space aircraft.

The strategic background is clear: if Invictus demonstrates its viability, Europe could move towards orbital planes capable of carrying out civil and military missions with a difficult rapid and flexibility to match conventional vertical rockets.

The Consortium —frazer-NASH in front, together with Spirit Aerosystems and Cranfield University-has 12 months and 7 million euros of initial financing to deliver the complete preliminary design of the vehicle, indispensable step before programming the testing campaigns in flight. The internal calendar points to a first demonstration flight around 2031.

While the United States and China compete to dominate hypersonic flight, Europe does not want to stay in the barrier. With Invictus, that spears a clear message: the continent intends to design the future access to space in its own terms.

Images | THAT | Frazer-Nash

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