Only supersonic...
...and in a vacuum!
Posted on 11/10/2021 1:43:37 AM PST by zeestephen
SpinLaunch, which is building an alternative method of launching spacecraft to orbit, last month conducted its first test flight of a prototype in New Mexico...The company is developing a launch system that uses kinetic energy as its primary method to get off the ground – with a vacuum-sealed centrifuge spinning the rocket at several times the speed of sound before releasing...The SpinLaunch design for its orbital vehicle would be able to carry about 200 kilograms of payload to orbit, equivalent to a few small satellites.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
You posted on this more than three years ago.
They have recently tested a small prototype.
I still have problems trying to visualize how this works.
The still photographs in the link are not much help.
Only supersonic...
...and in a vacuum!
10,000 G during the spin-up! Wondering what sorts of payloads can survive that?
However, I do not understand how you keep the cargo from self-destructing from the massive g-force before release.
And...
I do not understand the release. An error of just a few micro-seconds could put it in the wrong orbit, or splatter it into the ground.
That is a great visual aid.
Maybe 10,000 G is code for $10,000,000.00 per launch...
“An error of just a few micro-seconds could put it in the wrong orbit, or splatter it into the ground.”
No worries, close enough for government work.
No simple answer.
It’s possible to design smart munitions (Copperhead, Excalibur) that can take the massive acceleration in being fired in a 155 mm cannon. A full blown computer-sensor-guidance package with foldable steerable fins is not a trivial exercise but it can and has been done.
As you noted timing is everything! Releasing the payload a microsecond off would be a disaster! Also a challenge, and exactly how it’s done is beyond my ken. My ‘mature’ computer has a 2.8 GHz processor, that’s one clock cycle every 0.36 nanoseconds, about 3,000 decisions per microsecond...
The video linked by “knarf” says the payload is 200 pounds. Fyi... Guidance post release could be problematic...air density...headwinds...release mechanism variations..Also a rocket would have hard time enduring prolonged g forces...hopefully it gets engineered out. I have heard that a high altitude cargo plane outfitted with 4 or five rocket payloads to be released at upper altitude of flight could be a viable option. Could be robotic, so no crew needed.
Interesting.
Consider 200 kg of water. 200 kg of aluminum. 200 kg of sugar. 200 kg of rocket fuel.
All of those things are extremely valuable, and all are extremely expensive to get into orbit.
If you can do it at 5% of the cost, with a centrepital system, the cost of space flight goes down enormously.
If this system, at 1/3 scale works on earth, it would easily work on the Moon to send payloads back to the Earth, where the escape velocity is less than 1/10 the orbital velocity from the earth.
1/10th the velocity means only 1% of the energy is needed to return to the earth from the moon, as to orbit the earth.
Any idea on the acceleration with this type of launch? Whatever they launch would be subjected to a sustained high g-load.
That's my recollection, and probably wrong!
The takeaway is that even with late 1970s/early 1980s technology it was possible to make a complex electro-mechanical system that could endure high g-forces.
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