New Tech Spins-Flings Rockets to Space

SpinLaunch: Launching Rockets with a Giant Centrifuge

Source: SpinLaunch

Tremendous Fuel Savings

A Long Beach, California based company has developed a unique breakthrough technology that literally flings rockets into space.  The technology is under development with big investment backing and a contract from the US Department of Defense.  The SpinLaunch system is a giant centrifuge, the size of a football field, that will spin rockets up to 5,000 mph and then fling them out for orbit into space.  What's the key value:  tremendous fuel savings.  The company says, it will be able to do 5 launches a day at a cost of $250,000 per launch as a result of  the fuel savings.

Giant Centrifuge and Kinetic Energy

The giant centrifuge launch system is based on kinetic energy.  Inside the centrifuge, which is a partial vacuum, a long arm with a launch vehicle on one end and a counterweight on the other, starts accelerating the spin speed over a few hours.  At peak velocity of about 5,000 mph, an airlock opens and the rocket is released.

One Minutes Worth of Fuel

At 200,000 feet into the flight, the rocket's engines turn on to give it a boost into orbit.  SpinLaunch says that only one minute's worth of fuel burn is required.  This technology is worth watching because of its investment and US government backing interest.  It's now being tested and the testing is being ramped up.  By the end of 2020, the company plans to launch a 110 pound test vehicle into suborbital flight.  If all goes well, this launch system could yield tremendous fuel savings and greatly cut the cost of launching payloads, like internet communications satellites, into space.  To take a browse of Edward Kane's  latest books on big new innovations, go to amazon.com/author/ekane I co-authored the books with Ed.