Indonesia and the UK have been in talks discussing the development of Skylon together with Indonesia's newest space centre, the Morotai Spaceport.
They have agreed a mutual exclusivity deal where these two countries will work together to complete final phase testing of Skylon and prepare Morotai for launching of Skylon into orbit. Neither of these innovations will be available for use by other countries unless both parties agree.
Skylon is a multi-use vehicle that would take off from a conventional runway, and accelerate to Mach 5.4 at 26 kilometres (16 mi) altitude using the atmosphere's oxygen before switching the engines to use the internal liquid oxygen (LOX) supply to take it into orbit. Once in orbit it would release its payload of up to 15 tonnes. The vehicle will be unpiloted, but also be certified to carry up to 30 passengers. All payloads could be carried in a standardised container compartment. The relatively light vehicle would then re-enter the atmosphere and land on a runway.
Details of financing etc will be released after further consultation
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[–] Halofreak1171 ago
Ok