EASY, low-cost and reliable access to space is critical to the development of the global space market that is estimated to be worth more than 150 billion dollars a year worldwide.

Now, a reusable space plane that can take off from a conventional aircraft runway, carry more than 12 tonnes into orbit and return to land on the same runway, could be only 10 years away, thanks to a European group of aerospace engineers working in the United Kingdom.

The project, led by the REL company of the UK, is part of a joint public and private multi-million-pounds research programme helped by an award of a million euros by the European Space Agency (ESA). The ESA contract contributes towards a total programme of almost six million pounds.

The technology - developed by a European team of experts including academics from Bristol University's Department of Aerospace Engineering, England - is for the Sabre air-breathing rocket engine that will power the Skylon space plane.

The Sabre is a unique hybrid engine that can breathe in air when in the atmosphere, to operate as a jet engine, and then change to become a rocket engine when in space. In air-breathing mode, air is first cooled by an innovative heat exchanger pre-cooler before being compressed and fed to the rocket engine to be burned with hydrogen fuel. When in rocket mode, the hydrogen is burned with liquid oxygen.

Alan Bond, the managing director of REL (Reaction Engines Limited), said that the ultimate goal to transform the economics of getting into space is "to use a truly re-usable space plane capable of taking off from an airport and climbing directly into space, delivering its satellite payload and automatically returning safely to Earth".

He added: "Traditional throw-away rockets costing more than 100 million dollars a launch are a drag on the growth of this market. Years of planning and research by REL on the Skylon vehicle and its unique Sabre air-breathing engine mean that we have an inside track on realising this goal. Skylon could reduce the cost of getting into space by a factor of 10."

The demonstration programme will look at three key areas in the engine. The first, conducted by REL, concerns the revolutionary pre-cooler that cools the incoming air as it enters the engine.

The second key area is the cooling of the combustion chamber, in which the propellants are mixed and burned producing water vapour at about 3,000 degrees Celsius. The Sabre engine uses air or liquid oxygen as the cooling fluid, a key and unusual design feature because most rocket engines use hydrogen fuel for cooling.

REL's partners in this programme are Bristol University and two aerospace companies in Germany - EADS Astrium in Ottobrun and DLR - who will be conducting this work using demonstration chambers fired at the Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR) facility in Lampoldhausen.

The third area will explore advanced exhaust nozzles that can adapt to the ambient atmospheric pressure. The demonstration programme has the objective of removing all the outstanding technical concerns on the Sabre engine. This will pave the way to a full engine development programme as part of the overall development of Skylon.

Lord Drayson, UK Minister for Science & Innovation, said: "This is an example of a British company developing world-beating technology with exciting consequences for the future of space. It is fantastic that Reaction Engines, the British National Space Centre and the ESA have successfully secured this public-private partnership arrangement and I look forward to seeing how the project progresses."

The British National Space Centre (BNSC) is at the heart of UK efforts to explore and exploit space, and represents the UK at the European Space Agency (www.bnsc.gov.uk).

The UK's space and satellite telecoms industry has seen its turnover nearly double in the last seven years and looks set to continue to grow strongly. The UK industry continues to show good growth, with the sector improving by nearly eight per cent in 2006/07 and an overall turnover of 5.8 billion pounds.

A 2008 review on the size and health of the UK space industry reports that services continue to be the dominant sector in terms of overall size (85 per cent and worth five bn pounds) as well as growth (8 per cent).

The Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (DIUS) is responsible for the development, funding and performance management of the science and research base across the UK.