Popular Mechanics: NASA has a new plane design concept
 

https://www.popularmechanics.com/fli...ocialflowFBPOP

Interesting stuff. Smaller wing engines with generators connected to power a rear electric engine to streamline wind flow.

Since the back engine creates most of the thrust, are there any reliability concerns? Or would the smaller engines on the wings still be able to get the plane on the ground safely?

A legitimate concern. I'd imagine they'd be held to a regulation that the plane would have to be able to operate and land under a 2 engine situation but takeoff might be a stretch for a requirement but probably a production mandate to satisfy clients.

I would assume the same requirements/design parameters about flying with one engine non-operational would hold.

In fact, designing an engine that can fly with 2/3 of the engines working would save even more weight/size than designing an engine that has to fly with 1/2 of the engines working, as they are today.

But since the tail engine is powered by electricity generated by the wing engines, wouldn't loss of a wing engine cause the tail engine to be under-powered?

STARC-ABL, "Single-aisle Turboelectric Aircraft with an Aft Boundary-Layer propulsor”, sounds like pie in the sky if you look at ETOPS requirements.

I was recently on a modern cruise ship where all eight engines (propulsion and power generators) went out simultaneously for ~three hours. The emergency generator powered emergency lighting, navaids, comms, and little else. If we had been in the Greenland - Labrador crossing we’d made prior, it’d have been dicey.

A MIA - CDG STARC-ABL with the loss of one engine might theoretically find itself in similar circumstances., depending g on the interdependence of these dissimilar engines.