Reaction Engines Forms Advisory Board For Hypersonics, Defense

Hypersonics expert and advocate Mark Lewis and national security strategist JV Venable have been appointed as the founding members of Reaction Engines’ newly formed U.S. Board of Advisors.

Adam Dissel, the British high-speed propulsion developer’s U.S. president, says the advisory board will help “guide the company’s strategy and market growth in thermal management solutions for government (military and civilian) and commercial applications.”

The move comes as Reaction continues its push in the U.S. and elsewhere to develop its pre-cooler technology for high-Mach aircraft and missiles, as well as space access vehicles.

Earlier this year Reaction successfully completed a U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory-supported test program aimed at dramatically expanding the system’s performance envelope. The work, administered by the Directorate of Defense Research and Engineering for Advanced Capabilities, was conducted at the company’s TF2 high-temperature test site at the Colorado Air and Space Port through the Foreign Comparative Testing (FCT) program at the Defense Department.

Reaction hopes the board will assist in advising efforts to place the pre-cooler and related additional advanced propulsion system work into applications, ranging from potential use in high-speed cruiser and space accelerator engines to thermal management of a turbine engine in a combined cycle powerplant. Dissel says Reaction’s “desired outcome is to have a pre-cooler [technology readiness level] with the capability to be integrated into a high speed/high Mach-capable engine.”

Lewis, who is the Executive Director of the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies Institute, was formerly the director of Defense Research & Engineering at the Pentagon, as well as Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering. Among other prior roles, Lewis was also director of the Science and Technology Policy Institute, which supported the Executive Office of the President. From 2004 to 2008 he was Chief Scientist of the U.S. Air Force, the principal scientific adviser to the Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Air Force.

Venable, a combat veteran and retired military aviator, has advised on national security and aerospace matters. Dissel says he “will be a tremendous asset to the Reaction Engines advisory board. His in-depth knowledge and critical thinking on military strategy and policy—notably in U.S. Air Force programs, priorities, and funding—will be a valuable resource and important voice on our U.S. Advisory Board.”