UK scientists to build ‘self-eating’ spacecraft in joint US-backed space mission

***The Telegraph reports:***

A “self-eating” spacecraft that uses its own rocket as fuel is being created by scientists.

A firm based in Leicester is working on creating the world’s first “autophage engine”, which would be able to transport payloads from Earth to the Moon at low cost.

The project aims to build an experimental rocket for which the physical body provides the fuel.

Meridian Space Command and French firm Alpha Impulsion have been awarded £150,000 of taxpayer money to form phase one of the ETV (economical transfer vehicle) project.

This will fund the preliminary design review of the project to determine its feasibility and viability.

UK Space Agency officials call the ETV a “next-generation logistics and payload-hosting spacecraft”.

They add that it will be “powered by an autophagy engine that actively consumes its own structural tank during flight”.

Funding for the project and 22 others was announced at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Sydney.

Engineers behind the project say the ETV will be capable of entering and leaving different orbits and trajectories through space.

**Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/30/space-motorbike-autophage-engine-launch/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/30/space-motorbike-autophage-engine-launch/)

This reminds me of the phrase “engine-rich exhaust”, I want to say from the book Ignition! but I can’t remember, about fuels that are so reactive they react with the engine and spit it out the exhaust.