PwC administrators says £884,000 deal to sell IP of hypersonic flight pioneer Reaction Engines completed
16 Jun 2026
Author
Martin Croft
PR & Marketing Manager
Image: Reaction Engines Ltd
PwC administrators handling the winding up of Reaction Engines have now signed a deal with an as-yet unnamed buyer for IP developed by the collapsed hypersonic flight pioneer. The purchase price was £884,000.
When the company went into administration in October 2024, the company’s directors had said they believed the IP was worth around £850,000, against debts or over £160m. Much of that had come from the UK Government, including £60m from the UK Space Agency to fund development of the company’s Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) technology.
In a 2014 media release, the UK Space Agency said SABRE was “a rocket engine designed to power aircraft directly into space to allow reliable, responsive and cost-effective space access.”
Other companies and organisations that funded Reaction Engines included the European Space Agency, the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, and Boeing.
The history of Reaction Engines, SABRE, and the proposed reusable space plane, Skylon, dates back to the 1980s UK Horizontal Take-Off and Landing (HOTOL) project led by BAE and Rolls-Royce, which sought to create a reusable space plane powered by an air-breathing engine that would travel at five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.
One of the core challenges that Reaction Engines faced was how to deal with the intense heat generated by the air-breathing engine sucking in atmospheric air to harvest oxygen at supersonic speeds. Reaction Engines successfully tested its revolutionary cooling system in 2019, as the ESA reported.
It is understood that the Reaction Engines IP which has now been sold relates to the cooling technology. PwC has said that it will identify the buyer in its next report on the progress of the administration.
