SpinLaunch—yes, the centrifuge rocket company—is making a hard pivot to satellites
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I always wondered how much mass penalty there was for the rocket needing to survive a huge sideways load as well as the normal load from above.
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On the moon or Mars? Somewhere with thin to no atmosphere? Sure.
On Earth? VC scam. VCs love thinking they're smart and this is the kind of sci-fi thing that makes semi smart people feel very smart for embracing it. They know it's possible so they convince themselves they'll be the ones to fund it. Because if they're successful, it proves how smart they are. If they fail, it proves the poor economic conditions that "no one could do anything about."
I do not think VCs, both individuals and firms, have any idea of how often they're getting scammed. They do their "due diligence" but they never know enough to do it correctly.
Hell the Gates Foundation got scammed by the mosquito laser people. Literally a scam, they never had any intention of making it work. But it's just plausible enough for Bill Gates to think it's a "visionary" thing to back.
On Earth? VC scam. VCs love thinking they're smart and this is the kind of sci-fi thing that makes semi smart people feel very smart for embracing it. They know it's possible so they convince themselves they'll be the ones to fund it. Because if they're successful, it proves how smart they are. If they fail, it proves the poor economic conditions that "no one could do anything about."
I do not think VCs, both individuals and firms, have any idea of how often they're getting scammed. They do their "due diligence" but they never know enough to do it correctly.
Hell the Gates Foundation got scammed by the mosquito laser people. Literally a scam, they never had any intention of making it work. But it's just plausible enough for Bill Gates to think it's a "visionary" thing to back.
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“Our initial funding has run out and it turns out throwing things into space isn’t really feasible. Should we pivot to a new crazy idea that sounds like it might work, or throw out word salad claiming we can copy what successful companies are doing?”
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I gotta get a line to some VC folks, how does that work. Cause I have lots of far fetched but nifty ideas, yes I do.
IYCB’E,J’E
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Not just the multi-kilo G side load, but constantly swinging through its own supersonic shock wave, and aerodynamic friction heating. The SR-71 at Mach 3 had skin temps in excess of 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
The spinner would also have to be counterbalanced within a gnat's eyelash of the rocket's weight, and perhaps, change its weight as fuel boiled off during the spinup.
Makes 33 engines straight up look like a bargain.
The spinner would also have to be counterbalanced within a gnat's eyelash of the rocket's weight, and perhaps, change its weight as fuel boiled off during the spinup.
Makes 33 engines straight up look like a bargain.
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J.C. Helios
Ars Scholae Palatinae
It's more of a zero-interest-rate phenomenon, so we'll have to see how the next recession goes. (Stagflationary recession might not count.)
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So even more space debris and orbital pollution just to make yet another communication constellation. We eventually are going to need to protect this environment from indiscriminate over use that none of their users pay for. It is already impacting ground-based telescopes.
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I've said it since day one: This is a scheme to separate idiots from cash.
Math below.
E
It currently costs as little as $1,000/kg to get to LEO. So if you have 150kg birds, that's $150,000 each to get to orbit. Assuming those 250 satellites can be BUILT FOR FREE (ha!) then that's still $37,500,000 just to get these things into intial LEO. Assuming delta V IS FREE FREE FREE (ha!) then you're still roughly $25 million over budget.
The only thing spinning here is the yarn. Others have discussed "sideways load" but any way you want to put it, 4,700MPH (Mach 6+ at sea level and ISA) is high. STS went to 3G. Atlas 5 goes to 6G but it's in ONE direction. It's not torsional, rotational, or lateral.
And while I continue to speak about something so ludicrous that when I said years ago "It will never happen" and now we ... er... see it not happening... think of that MOMENT and I mean the product of the ARM and the MASS of the object. It's a rotating lever and at one edge it's going Mach 6 and at the other (center of the spindle) much less. There is nothing on earth strong enough to heft 150kg to 4,700MPH without crumbling either from the supersonic boom as the mass goes faster than Mach 1, let alone the
Oh to hell with it. I'd rather watch Airwolf go supersonic after "disengaging the rotor blades."
Math below.
E
It currently costs as little as $1,000/kg to get to LEO. So if you have 150kg birds, that's $150,000 each to get to orbit. Assuming those 250 satellites can be BUILT FOR FREE (ha!) then that's still $37,500,000 just to get these things into intial LEO. Assuming delta V IS FREE FREE FREE (ha!) then you're still roughly $25 million over budget.
The only thing spinning here is the yarn. Others have discussed "sideways load" but any way you want to put it, 4,700MPH (Mach 6+ at sea level and ISA) is high. STS went to 3G. Atlas 5 goes to 6G but it's in ONE direction. It's not torsional, rotational, or lateral.
And while I continue to speak about something so ludicrous that when I said years ago "It will never happen" and now we ... er... see it not happening... think of that MOMENT and I mean the product of the ARM and the MASS of the object. It's a rotating lever and at one edge it's going Mach 6 and at the other (center of the spindle) much less. There is nothing on earth strong enough to heft 150kg to 4,700MPH without crumbling either from the supersonic boom as the mass goes faster than Mach 1, let alone the
Oh to hell with it. I'd rather watch Airwolf go supersonic after "disengaging the rotor blades."
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Two years ago Real Engineering did a documentary on SpinLaunch. Towards the end they discuss what modifications needed to be made for the satellites. They start talking about it around 37:33
At the time they said changes required were "not much" but who knows given the latest news.
View: https://youtu.be/yrc632oilWo?si=ToEm9S65kJG9Ho7V&t=2253
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Either start doing cocaine with the right people or just try again but this time be born rich and connected
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Yes, this is a key problem to this approach to launch. There isn't much that can stand being accelerated that quickly and do much of anything useful afterward. Things like solar panels and mylar insulation over components that you see on traditional satellites would not withstand 15G, let alone any propellants onboard staying contained for such a manoeuver, The levels of impracticality rise quickly. The original VCs had to be aware that this was a high-risk exploration of a launch concept, I hope. The fact they waited this long to "pivot" or just add something to the product list as reality dawned is a bit worrisome for their future operations. If you're gonna try to fly by the seat of your pants with a high-risk concept, you better learn to turn quickly.
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Unless you were an intel/crypto/aviation type, Adak Naval Station was punishment duty for screwing up or pissing off the wrong people.
Located at the far end of the Aleutian Islands, Adak has a “subpolar oceanic climate”
Daily mean temperature 0 to 10 Celsius.
Windy all the time
Horizontal rain/sleet/wet snow 266 day/yr
1000 km to the nearest Walmart (Kodiak Island)
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How big is the market for telecom constellations? If you're planning on starting service in 2028, do you really expect to compete with both Starlink and Kuiper? Maybe if you've got some Unique Selling Point, but "our satellites can be launched via SpinLaunch in the future, when the accelerator is built" doesn't seem particularly helpful
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Yeah the idea was to have it under vacuum and then burst through a membrane.
...whereupon it slams into the dense atmosphere.
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Not to defend literally any of the rest of their scheme, but they did at least think about the aerodynamic friction: the centrifuge is brought to some level of vacuum. there's a membrane at the exit that the projectile tears open as it leaves the launcher.
edit: ninja'd by seconds, curses!
2nd edit after looking a little farther up: great minds fellas, great minds.
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The rotor and its payload are in a vacuum as it spins up. The counterbalance question, especially post-launch, has been a persistent one here but supposedly one they had a solution for it. And I believe the prop in this case would be solid.
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There's a classic physics question - why don't you just run your rocket on a sled on the ground to get it up to speed, then ramp it vertical at the end? Once the prof teaches you about air resistance, you amend it to be, why don't you run it through a vacuum-filled pipe and ramp it up at the end?
The answer is that ramping the rocket vertical requires an enormous amount of force, more than almost any materials could handle. Spin launch wants to take that peak force and just... maintain it for the entire acceleration period.
I'm with the other comments here. This is a system that efficiently moves money from VCs to engineers, not a space launch system. The satellites feel like maybe they need a new infusion of cash to keep the music going a few years longer.
The answer is that ramping the rocket vertical requires an enormous amount of force, more than almost any materials could handle. Spin launch wants to take that peak force and just... maintain it for the entire acceleration period.
I'm with the other comments here. This is a system that efficiently moves money from VCs to engineers, not a space launch system. The satellites feel like maybe they need a new infusion of cash to keep the music going a few years longer.
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aha! so along with tossing 'em up they're going to try to lowering a net to haul 'em up the rest of the way [insert not being serious while dangling the notion for a venture capitalist emoji]
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Wait wait, I've been looking for this laser for years...How do I find out more about this?
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IIRC, from the more recent Nova episode that featured SpinLaunch, the batteries were the main thing that had issues under the high g load.
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And as soon as it released the spinner would be grossly imbalanced.
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And in that case at the moment it leaves that vacuum it plows into the atmosphere. Thats going to be some shock.
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I think the membrane was temporary and they replaced it with precisely timed doors that close again so they don't have to spend much time or energy losing and re-establishing the "vacuum". It did seem fairly well thought out and aiming for sustainability for certain types of payloads. And if there is a market at scale for them, masses of tiny low-orbit satellites that have to be regularly replaced would be it. I could imagine, if the numbers work out and the second stage rocket can similarly be made simple and mass produced for dirt cheap, putting a constellation of small units in a very low polar orbit, which would allow a single, minimal launcher to get global coverage without big fancy rockets and infrastructure. But I just doubt the numbers do work out, technical hurdles notwithstanding.
I could see this working if it were on top of a tall mountain, and it might be wonderful on, say, Mars, but I do wonder if it could ever be pragmatic to throw something into the brick wall of Earth's troposphere like that.
edit: I was informed they have both a membrane and doors. The membrane is at the end of a long tunnel and the payload goes through doors at the start of the tunnel. The doors close before the payload reaches the membrane so that no atmosphere enters the chamber, which could damage the spinning arm. Only the tunnel has to be evacuated after a new membrane is applied.
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As much as I never thought this was a feasible launch solution, this kind of blue sky engineering absolutely has a place, and hopefully some of what they developed will be useful in other projects.
I just wish that we had an economic system where this wasn't at the whim/essentially forcing the creation of a class of gullible rich people to fleece for venture capital.
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IIRC the plan (such as it was) was that the rotor and bearing would be built to withstand the off balance load for half a rotation, and the counterbalance would be a second payload that follows the first.
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I had wondered aloud before how these things would be able to withstand the forces required. Apparently a 440# payload is a big part of the answer. At 10 thousand g that's still 4,400 kips of tension. That requires about 20 square inches of tungsten carbide, which will weigh 140# per running foot of cable, quickly exceeding it's own strength. It would have problems like a space elevator... are they using graphene or something? I remember people poo-poo-ing the question.
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So you just need to find somewhere a really deep hole in the ground is needed and use the counterweight to shatter the rock at the bottom of a shallow hole. Then remove the shattered rock and counterweight dust from the bottom of the hole before the next launch!
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For a second I thought maybe you could use a centrifuge like this to launch inert kinetic projectiles surface-to-surface like a big ol' catapult, if you didn't have the ability to manufacture rockets, but then I realized that rockets are actually a lot easier to make than one of these things. You couldn't make a functional launch centrifuge in a cave or a basement. So it's still much harder and way worse.
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They could have a side-hustle of digging a tunnel to Australia?
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IPunchCholla
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I get all the negative replies, I don’t think they’ll ever make orbit.
But man, that 1/6 (or whatever) test is a freaking cool way of yeeting something. Looked at as crazy engineering its amazing. As a path to orbit, not so much.
But man, that 1/6 (or whatever) test is a freaking cool way of yeeting something. Looked at as crazy engineering its amazing. As a path to orbit, not so much.
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I wonder if they're exploiting Very Low Earth Orbits (VLEO) in order to make their satellites smaller. Albedo just launched an earth observation satellite, Clarity-1, that will orbit at only 275 km, well below the 400 km of the ISS or the 530 km of Starlink. The upside is that they can get better resolution because they're closer (10 cm!) and the downside is that they have to counter atmospheric drag and corrosion from atomic oxygen. Lower is also better for radio links on both transmit and receive, which lets one use less power and smaller solar panels.
Albedo is using a xenon ion-thruster to stay up, which runs out at some point. Other companies like Redwire Space are using ionized air for reaction mass. Their SabreSat is talking about going down to 150 km:
They got a DARPA contract to build this last year, but no word on schedule.
Albedo is using a xenon ion-thruster to stay up, which runs out at some point. Other companies like Redwire Space are using ionized air for reaction mass. Their SabreSat is talking about going down to 150 km:
They got a DARPA contract to build this last year, but no word on schedule.
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