BREAKING: Satellite Failure Scuttles First-of-its-Kind In-Space Test of Physics-Defying QUANTUM DRIVE

The Debrief ^ | FEBRUARY 12, 2024 | CHRISTOPHER PLAIN

[Red Badger]

Rogue Space Systems has announced the failure of its Barry 1 satellite, which occurred before the company could test a controversial quantum drive propellantless propulsion system.

In a posted statement, the company said Barry 1 was able to complete a portion of its primary mission, including tests of their Scalable Compute Platform (SCP). Unfortunately, they lost contact with the satellite before they could perform any tests of IVO Ltd.’s Quantum Drive.

“Rogue’s Barry-1 satellite didn’t make it all the way through LEOP (Launch and Early Orbit Phase),” said IVO founder and President Richard Mansell in an email to The Debrief. “Sadly, we never even got to turn on the Drives!”

POWER SYSTEM ISSUES HAUNTED QUANTUM DRIVE HOST SATELLITE SINCE LAUNCH

According to the Rogue Space Systems statement, Barry 1 experienced ongoing power-system issues on the satellite’s bus immediately after its November 11th, 2023 launch and all throughout LEOP. Then, after two months of operations, the company said on February 9th, 2024 that they lost all communication with the satellite.

“Rogue Space Systems operations team is announcing the suspension of the active phase of our first on-orbit mission,” the company explained. In that same statement, Rogue says they are currently investigating the cause of the failure and are also trying to reestablish communications with Barry 1.

There has been no statement from Rogue on whether or not the bus failure was related to the original third-party equipment failure that delayed the mission’s original launch last October. However, the company did note their frustration at not being able to complete the Quantum Drive test, as well as their intent to pursue future launch opportunities with IVO.

“I’d like to take the opportunity to praise IVO for being a great customer,” said company CEO Jon Beam, “and we are in discussions on a second attempt during one of our upcoming new missions.” This includes a slate of Rogue hosting missions scheduled for some time in 2025.

In an email to The Debrief, IVO’s Mansell confirmed they are exploring future launch opportunities with Rogue. However, they are also exploring other potential options that may get their Quantum Drive to space as soon as possible.

“We have appreciated all that Rogue has done for us and look forward to hitching another ride with them,” Mansell said. “At the same time, they know that the sooner we can obtain a ride to space, the better. Therefore, we are also exploring additional opportunities to get to orbit.”

“The more Quantum Drives we can get into space, the better,” he added.

DRIVE PART OF CONTROVERSIAL CLASS OF PROPULSION SYSTEMS

Unlike a conventional satellite propulsion system that uses some form of propellant, the Quantum Drive is part of an emerging yet controversial class of experimental propulsion systems that claim to generate measurable thrust without any propellant. Such claims go against the conventional understanding of momentum and inertia by directly violating Sir Isaac Newton’s second laws of motion.

More than one of these experimental propellant-less propulsion systems has appeared to create thrust in a lab environment, including the controversial EMDrive, whose thrust was confirmed both by Chinese scientists and NASA Eagle Works lab boss Harold G. Sonny White.

Still, before the Quantum Drive, none of these concepts had the opportunity to be tested in the vacuum of space, and all of their claims of thrust produced in the lab are still hotly debated by conventional physicists. As such, the failure of Barry 1 to perform the Quantum Drive test has been met with a combination of frustration and hope in the Alternative Propulsion Community.

“The new era of space exploration is characterized by pushing technology to the limits, failing fast, and learning from mistakes,” Tim Ventura, host of the bi-weekly Alternative Propulsion Engineering Conference (APEC), told The Debrief. “I would compare IVO’s setback to the countless Starship prototypes that exploded on the pad during testing – a small loss today in pursuit of larger gains for all humanity tomorrow.”

Fortunately for supporters of the controversial propulsion concept behind these types of drives, the Quantum Drive itself did not fail, but was simply unable to be tested.

For future test flights, Mansell said that IVO will be using the same basic design of the Quantum Drive that showed thrust in the lab. However, they do expect to include some recent improvements as well as any customizations needed to conform the drives to their host satellites.

“The overall configuration of the Drives will not change,” Mansell told The Debrief. “While waiting for the Barry-1 tests, we have been continuously working to improve the Drives. Those improvements will be part of the next set that goes to space.”

[Red Badger]

Ping!....................

[Paladin2]

Rocket Science has long had great disappointments.

[dfwgator]

The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were well understood. It is said, by the Guide, that such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess’s undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance with the theory of indeterminacy.

Many respectable physicists said that they weren’t going to stand for this, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn’t get invited to those sorts of parties.

The physicists encountered repeated failures while trying to construct a machine which could generate the infinite improbability field needed to flip a spaceship across the mind-paralyzing distances between the farthest stars. They eventually announced that such a machine was virtually impossible.

Then, one day, a student who had been left to sweep up after a particularly unsuccessful party found himself reasoning in this way: “If such a machine is a virtual impossibility, it must have finite improbability. So all I have to do, in order to make one, is to work out how exactly improbable it is, feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea... and turn it on!” He did this and managed to create the long sought after golden Infinite Improbability generator out of thin air. Unfortunately, shortly after he was awarded the Galactic Institute’s Prize for Extreme Cleverness, he was lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists on the ground that he has became the one thing they couldn’t stand most of all: “a smart arse”.

[wally_bert]

The Queller Drive from Space 1999 worked but was had a high danger level.

One of the weaker episodes of the series.

There weren’t that many strong ones.

[BitWielder1]

If you can't even measure the effect, don't expect to see useful propulsion systems anytime soon.

[DiogenesLamp]

BREAKING: Satellite Failure Scuttles First-of-its-Kind In-Space Test of Physics-Defying QUANTUM DRIVE

I have been following this topic as closely as I can for the last decade. I am quite disappointed that the first actual test of this thing has gone awry.

Skeptics will point out this is very convenient.

This thing will be one of the most consequential developments in physics if it actually works, and it is a real tragedy that this attempt has failed.

[Red Badger]

Sabotage?.......................

[DiogenesLamp]

I doubt it. As a devil's advocate, my first thought was that they tested it, it didn't work, and they made up this failure to cover up the fact that it didn't work.

I hope that's not right, and I hope it is actually what they say it is.

It may have been just an oversight in design or planning for the mission.

Hopefully they can launch another one and we can finally see if this idea has any merit.

[Boogieman]

Sure, Big Propellant was never going to let this happen.

[Red Badger]

Launch stresses on electronics is huge.................

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Check the hydrazine companies first.

[Terry L Smith]

note all the wording of a succrssful failure.

i have the notion that it did work, if only similar to flicking the light switch and the bulb pops, for a moment.
ues, the bulb failed, but it produces illumination beforefailure.

so, the drive initiated then flopped. you report it failed. no lie there.the drive initiated, youu have the readings to support that, and to study for improvement

[verum ago]

Skeptics will point out this is very convenient.

Yes, yes it is. All the vagueness and hand-waving so far, no real test values released, the on-orbit tests delayed repeatedly, and now this: no actual test, because something else failed first.

I really, really, want this to work, but at this point this is starting to smell like it's the lovechild of Theranos and E-Cat.

[DiogenesLamp]

Launch stresses on electronics is huge.................

I expect that is true. This may be the cause of the problem.

On another forum that I visit from time to time, the critics of the propellantless drive predicted that this effort would fail, but be blamed on something other than the drive itself.

It is very annoying to me that this makes them look correct.

The question of whether this works or not is still not settled. It is still up in the air.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes, yes it is. All the vagueness and hand-waving so far, no real test values released, the on-orbit tests delayed repeatedly, and now this: no actual test, because something else failed first.

I really, really, want this to work, but at this point this is starting to smell like it's the lovechild of Theranos and E-Cat.

You capture my feelings on this quite well. If it works, it's a game changer.

But it feels like a con at the moment.

[SunkenCiv]

Barry 1 satellite... next time there’s a launch failure, they’ll have to barry another one.

[Rockingham]

In a Nichols radiometer, the pressure of light acts on rotor with black and white vanes in an evacuated glass bulb and spins them around without any propellant. It seems to me that the various “impossible” space drives could work without propellant in a similar fashion, with the emission of electromagnetic energy generating a propulsive force.

[verum ago]

In a Nichols radiometer, the pressure of light acts on rotor with black and white vanes in an evacuated glass bulb and spins them around without any propellant. It seems to me that the various “impossible” space drives could work without propellant in a similar fashion, with the emission of electromagnetic energy generating a propulsive force.

While the photons themselves are massless, mass-energy equivalency (good ol E=mc^2 ) means you can still see the momentum they're taking with them. And that results in an equal-and-opposite reaction on the spacecraft. That same mass-energy equivalency also means that if you had a hyper-precise way of measuring the mass of a spacecraft emitting electromagnetic radiation, you could actually see its mass go down over time as it expends its 'propellant.' I.e.- simply emitting light is still a reaction drive. IVO claims to be reactionless.

The uneven (in time and / or direction) emission of light and its thrusting effects are actually an area of study in astronomy because the effects can add up significantly when acting on small bodies, which seriously degrades calculated orbital traectories. Check out the below:
Yarkovsky Effect
Poynting-Robertson Effect
YORP Effect

Worth pointing out: what you describe is still a reaction drive, and is fairly well understood physics. What IVO Ltd says is on the satellite is something else entirely (and annoyingly unclear).

[verum ago]

You capture my feelings on this quite well. If it works, it's a game changer.

But it feels like a con at the moment.

Got to wondering: if this is a venture-capital capture attempt, how much was spent on launching the thing?

I had no idea how small this satellite actually is. Just a CubeSat! If IVO was responsible for the SpaceX-charged launch costs for the entire max payload and max bus weight, a combined 7.1 kg, (and remember, it's a shared satellite and the IVO part isn't even the 'main' payload!) it would have cost around $20k. Not a massive investment if you're trying to bilk some investors...

And based on the schematic of the prototype that I've seen floating around (dielectric sandwiched between aluminum plates wrapped in electrical tape), I'm guessing the actual flight hardware didn't break the bank either.