Rocket company develops massive catapult to launch satellites into space without using jet fuel

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Rocket company develops massive catapult to launch satellites into space without using jet fuel: '10,000 times the force of Earth's gravity'

Rick Kazmer
Sat, June 15, 2024 at 2:00 PM EDT
3 min read

A California company has tech that will likely draw attention from the Punkin Chunkin community. … That's because SpinLaunch is developing a large rotating arm that uses kinetic energy to fling 440-pound satellites into low orbit, with successful tests already in the books. Importantly, the process doesn't need rocket fuel to work. It's all powered by electricity.

"This is not a rocket, and clearly our ability to perform in just 11 months this many tests and have them all function as planned, really is a testament to the nature of our technology," founder and CEO Jonathan Yaney said in a Space.com report from 2022, shortly after a 10th successful launch. The goal is to shoot constellations of satellites skyward — under 600 miles up — by 2026, per the report.

Satellites are used by scientists to monitor our planet's health from above, identifying polluting methane leaks, among other research. So a cleaner way to put them in the sky is exciting science.

Kinetic energy has been used by humans for centuries via trebuchets and siege machines during war, hurling heavy objects great distances. Pumpkin chucking, commonly called Punkin Chunkin, contests remain a popular way to teach kinetic and potential energy physics with similar human-made machines.

SpinLaunch's contraption will likely have some of the chuckers wondering how many pumpkins they could put in orbit, if given the chance.

{spin}

[sop]

1. Sounds like a contraption Wily Coyote and Rube Goldberg would build.

Last edited Sun Jun 16, 2024, 11:22 AM - Edit history (1)

Correction: it was Wily, not Roadrunner.

[Wonder Why]

6. Did you mean Wily Coyote instead of Roadrunner?

[sop]

8. You're right, Wily was always putting together contraptions from ACME that blew up in his face.

Correction made.

[3Hotdogs]

2. Next step ---- build one around a chair. Put an astronaut in it. ----

Fuck you, Bezos and Musk.

[Think. Again.]

3. If they can get it to shoot past orbit...

...our concerns about nuclear waste are over.

[Martin68]

7. It is very doubtful such a device could achieve escape velocity. Their goal is launching

"low orbit" satellites.

[BWdem4life]

10. Ok, but

from low orbit, if it had a rocket engine, it could easily escape - right?

[Martin68]

11. A rocket engine with enough fuel to achieve escape velocity from low orbit would be prohibitively heavy.

Gravity is our problem here. It's a grave problem. A weighty one, you might say. Scientists don't believe even a volcanic explosion has ever put a rock into orbit.

[ChazInAz]

4. The whole thing looks like a boondoggle.

A vacuum chamber that size, with multiple openings for bearings and a tangential exit, strikes me as being improbable. Then there are the challenges of getting an arm spinning at supersonic speeds, and the changing directional forces on any high-tech equipment installed in a payload.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. The guy in the interview, Jonathan Yaney, stepped down

in May.

https://www.morningstar.com/news/business-wire/20240510636849/spinlaunch-board-announces-leadership-transition

He has a boatload of patents on the process.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. An article describing the anticipated problems

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/physics-spinlaunch/

Basically, what they've done so far is one third the radius, and about a fifth of the launch speed. Scaling up is not just a question of a bigger motor or more time to get up to speed. They might not be able to build a liquid-fuelled 2nd stage that can withstand the 5-10,000g (lateral) acceleration. Solid rocket 2nd stages aren't so controllable for the final injection into the correct orbit. The difference between a projectile breaking through a membrane from the vacuum inside the spinner to ground-level atmosphere at a little over Mach 1, and at the desired Mach 6, are considerable.

That article also mentions 'Green Launch', a project trying to achieve the same thing by launching from a hydrogen-fuelled gun - see https://www.aerospacetestinginternational.com/features/can-we-reach-space-a-different-way-by-the-end-of-this-decade.html and https://newatlas.com/space/greenlaunch-space-cannon-gas-launch/