New Sparta are keen to expand the licensing of their technology to commercial companies, The Shiner sees it as being a very valuable new funding stream. A start has been made with the licensing of a new economic engine core to Consolidated Spacecraft for 1.5 billion zarks plus royalties from engines built using the core.
The core is the work of NS Research and uses hybrid technologies to recycle spent fuel and external energy sources like solar to reduce the amount of fuel needed for normal operation. NS spends 8% of its annual budget on fuel and the required infrastructure including the oiler fleet so reducing this is seen as a priority. Future uses for the technology in NS ships is expected from next year and will include use of EA-X.
The commercial version of the engine core and related systems is said to be able to reduce fuel burn by an average of 5% which amounts to quite a lot on long distance transport programmes.
