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These Rockets Are Launched By Being Spun Really Fast, Instead Of With Fuel
By Ell Ko, 16 Nov 2021
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Image via SpinLaunch
With space travel becoming less of a distant dream, it’s no surprise that different technologies are being developed and tested in an endeavor to find the most efficient way to fuel and launch these spacecraft.
SpinLaunch is a startup that specializes in rocket launching, and its name might already hint at what method it’s using: spinning the rocket round really really fast, which launches it. It’s something that makes you wonder, “How have we never thought of this before?”
It’s called kinetic launching, and comes down to an electric motor-powered centrifuge. This is called the Suborbital Accelerator, and is what the company calls the “largest span vacuum chamber ever built” with a carbon-fiber rotating-arm-style centrifuge inside.
Put simply, this arm spins the payload (or rocket) around, and when it’s reached the required speed in “less than a millisecond,” a mechanical release sends it shooting out a tube into space, according to SpinLaunch CEO Jonathan Yaney.
Image via SpinLaunch
Typically, rockets only have a very small area for payload after factoring all the space required for fuel. By removing the amount required for launch and allowing for a better fuel-to-payload ratio, more room can be freed up for more efficient transport.
The company had a successful first test of the system on October 22, 2021. The Suborbital Accelerator the team used for this test is just about a third of the size of the final plan, and its smaller size also meant that it was spun only up to around 20% of its capacity.
However, even with this scaled-down test, the test payload—which measured about 10 feet—was able to be flung “tens of thousands” of feet up into space. And at its smaller size, the Accelerator was already the height of the Statue of Liberty.
Image via SpinLaunch
Yaney tells CNBC even though the projectile is just about 10 feet long, it “goes as fast as the orbital system needs, which is many thousands of miles an hour.”
He also adds that the goal was to reverse the current fuel-to-payload ratio, which would reduce the size of the rocket alongside its complexity and, of course, cost. Currently, the startup’s design for its proprietary orbital vehicle would be able to carry about 440 pounds of payload to orbit, which is roughly the weight of a few small satellites.
It’s not exactly clear how it would, or if it could, work if there are passengers in the spacecraft, though.
Image via SpinLaunch
[via Jalopnik, all images via SpinLaunch]
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