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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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!!