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[EN VIDÉO] Blue Origin record: 107km from the New Shepard Climb aboard the New Shepard capsule which completed another successful test flight. The machine, which was more than 100 kilometers from the ground, reached space. Its passengers, if there had been any, could have admired the blackness of the sky and the roundness of the earth. A camera lets us experience live what the future customers of these short suborbital journeys can see.
Reaching new horizons for its research, NASA relies on… a large centrifuge. In a press release published by the Business Wire website on April 6, the American space agency announced the start of a collaboration with the young Californian company SpinLaunch. The aim is to test, from 2022, the capacities of the project carried out by the company: to send satellites and objects into orbit thanks to the kinetic force generated by a centrifuge. Thanks to the signing of a Space Act agreement, NASA will be able to provide its expertise while analyzing the possibilities offered by this innovative system.
An ecological and economical solution
Founded in 2014, SpinLaunch promotes an ecological and economic evolution in space exploration. Its system is based on a massive structure called the Orbital Mass Accelerator (or L100 Orbital Mass Accelerator, in English). This titanic drum, 50 meters high and 33 meters in diameter, has a large arm inside it to which a projectile would be attached. The rotation of the arm, gradually gaining speed, would increase the kinetic energy of the object to be hurled into space.
Once the velocity was high enough, the projectile was fired vertically out of a tube next to the drum, much like a smokestack. The force caused by the object’s rotation would potentially be between 9,000 and 10,000 Gs. For comparison, the force exerted on astronauts taking off in a Soyuz capsule is equivalent to 5G.
One of the advantages of the system developed by SpinLaunch is its ecological aspect: the launches require about 70% less fuel than the launches of traditional launchers. The company’s CEO, Jonathan Yanley, therefore reiterated that SpinLaunch is a real alternative to polluting rockets, given the constant increase in missions into space with the sending of armadas from satellites such as the Starlink constellations or OneWeb. These devices would therefore require less fuel to adjust their position once in low orbit.
At the same time, the SpinLaunch centrifuge should also be economical in order to enable satellites to be launched into space at lower costs. Depending on the vehicle used and the cargo transported, a probe into orbit can cost several million euros or even tens of millions of euros. An Ariane 5 can transport almost 20 tons of payload for a modest 170 million euros. SpinLaunch aims to reduce these sizable fees with a cap of $500,000 per launch.
Launch imminent for SpinLaunch?
SpinLaunch’s centrifuge is only in the experimental phase, but an initial test conducted in October 2021 showed the feasibility of the project. A three meter high object was hurled 10,000 meters above sea level at a speed of more than 8,000 kilometers per hour. A first success for the company after engineers pointed out that the centrifuge was only running at 20% of its theoretical maximum capacity.
The collaboration between NASA and SpinLaunch could speed up the development of the project. The company had previously stated that in order to send 200 kg satellites into space to reach 100 meters, the diameter of the centrifuge would have to increase proportionately. SpinLaunch and the space agency are expected to conduct an initial joint test sometime in 2022.
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