Spinlaunch completes 10th test launch, this time for outside customers
Capitalism in space: Spinlaunch on September 27, 2022 successfully completed the 10th test launch of its radical spin launch centrifuge, this time accelerating test components to approximately 35k feet for other potential customers, including NASA.
Flight Test 10, which had a similar flight trajectory as previous campaigns, was witnessed by more than 150 partners, government officials, and industry advocates. It was SpinLaunch’s tenth flight test in just under eleven months since the Suborbital Mass Accelerator came online in late 2021.
…Four partner payloads, as well as two instrumentation payloads, were flown on the Suborbital Accelerator Flight Test Vehicle. For partners, the flight test provided critical data on the launch environment and payload integration process.
As part of the pre-flight qualification process, SpinLaunch accelerated payloads up to 10,000G in SpinLaunch’s 12-meter Lab Accelerator at its Long Beach headquarters. Payloads were inspected post-spin and subsequently integrated into the Flight Test Vehicle in preparation for Flight Test 10.
It remains to be seen whether this technology will work for launches to orbit. Even if it does, because of the stress produced during spin up this launch technique will really only work for bulk payloads to orbit, such as water and oxygen. If it works however it could reduce launch costs for these items tremendously.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Capitalism in space: Spinlaunch on September 27, 2022 successfully completed the 10th test launch of its radical spin launch centrifuge, this time accelerating test components to approximately 35k feet for other potential customers, including NASA.
Flight Test 10, which had a similar flight trajectory as previous campaigns, was witnessed by more than 150 partners, government officials, and industry advocates. It was SpinLaunch’s tenth flight test in just under eleven months since the Suborbital Mass Accelerator came online in late 2021.
…Four partner payloads, as well as two instrumentation payloads, were flown on the Suborbital Accelerator Flight Test Vehicle. For partners, the flight test provided critical data on the launch environment and payload integration process.
As part of the pre-flight qualification process, SpinLaunch accelerated payloads up to 10,000G in SpinLaunch’s 12-meter Lab Accelerator at its Long Beach headquarters. Payloads were inspected post-spin and subsequently integrated into the Flight Test Vehicle in preparation for Flight Test 10.
It remains to be seen whether this technology will work for launches to orbit. Even if it does, because of the stress produced during spin up this launch technique will really only work for bulk payloads to orbit, such as water and oxygen. If it works however it could reduce launch costs for these items tremendously.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Amazing that such a crazy machine has been constructed! It will be interesting to follow, thanks for bringing my attention to it!
I would still like to know how they keep the whole thing from tearing itself apart when the (presumably) balanced main arm becomes unbalanced by the release of the payload! Maybe it’s just a seriously massive bearing?
Ray, that is something I’m wondering as well. I hope that whatever mechanical solution they’ve come up with is scalable to the final launch size.
Can it send invaders back to SA??
Do they still have SETI(Search for Extra Terrestial Intelligence)going?
Bonus: it mixes the Tang before hucking it up to the Station.
Also: can you sling, say, 3000g of depleted uranium in a nice parabola? At, say, an aircraft carrier? Or a compound in, say, Pakistan?
Probably melt off as it screeches through the air… but that’s a question for the engineers.
I have wondered about the counter-balance issue also.
I cannot find the link, but the patent they filed mentions a counterweight released at the same time.
Personally I was thinking a liquid counterweight, to minimize the chance of actually damaging anything.
If I built a counterbalance that is dynamic I guess you could have two counter weights but they aren’t identical in weight one on each side of the fulcrum the lighter counter weight rides nearer the fulcrum, between the payload and the fulcrum, while the load is being sped up this way the weight of the payload plus the smaller counter weight balance out the larger counter weight on the opposite side of the fulcrum and upon launch of the payload that smaller weight is allowed to shift/slide outward far enough that it becomes in balance with the larger counter weight for instance imagine the cylinder of a six shooter has 3 side-by-side bullets in it, the other three chambers are empty (just an easy way to illustrate this idea, for any Harvard graduates out there there’s a joke later), The half of the cylinder with 3 empty chambers lets cut half of that or 1/4 of the cylinder away and hollow out the rest That is where the payload will rest along with a mechanism to launch the payload out of this pocket
As soon as the payload is launched the trigger is activated which allows cylinder to roll on its axis the heavy side of the cylinder that has the bullets now is 180 degrees away from where it was and the lighter side of the cylinder is now between the heavy side(bullets) and the fulcrum
Ta daa!!