(SpinLaunch)
SpinLaunch has released footage of its first mock-up rocket launched from a centrifugal booster.
The company plans to use a larger version of this rocket and to launch satellites into space.
Almost all rockets since the Soviet R-7 use the same principle of operation: they use a 2-5 stage design with jet engines.
The rocket launches from ground level and drops one stage after another to reduce weight and make it easier to fly.
In order to enter orbit, engines or other sources of momentum need to give the rocket a speed of 7.8 kilometers per second
Due to interaction with the atmosphere, in reality, about one and a half kilometers per second is needed.
These are fundamental physical limitations, but engineers have found ways to "get around" them. These methods are used or have been used in practice.
One of them is that before launching, the rocket is lifted into the air by an aircraft already gaining some speed at the height of 10-12 kilometers.
The second method uses the rotation of the Earth, which, when launched from the equator, saves about 0.5 kilometers per second.
A third option
There is also a concept in which the rocket, while still on the ground, is accelerated not by its own engines, but by a large accelerator
Then, rocket engines begin to work already high in the atmosphere.
So far, no one has tested such a system in practice, but there are projects that intend to do this in the coming years.
SpinLaunch has been developing such a system for several years.
Last year, the company conducted the first tests of a smaller technology demonstrator, and now for the first time showed a view from a mock-up rocket.
SpinLaunch’s accelerator is a large circular chamber with a spinning arrow. Before launch, a rocket is fixed at one of its ends, and air is pumped out of the chamber.
After the centrifuge spins, the locking mechanism in the chamber releases the rocket, and it flies out at a speed of about 2.2 km/s through a hole.
At the first stage of the flight, the rocket rises to 60 kilometers, and then drops the fairing and turns on the engine like conventional launch vehicles.
The last test
At the end of April, the company conducted the eighth test of a reduced prototype of the booster, and this time showed how the rocket would spin up and take off.
The team used a three-meter mock-up. When taking off, it moved at a speed of about 450 m/s, after which it rose above 7600 meters.
In the future, the company plans to build a full-sized accelerator with a diameter of more than 90 meters. It will not be located vertically, as it is now, but at an angle.
SpinLaunch says the rocket will be able to put into orbit loads weighing up to 200 kilograms, and the first launch into orbit will occur in 2025.
However, skeptics think that such a system is unlikely to launch most satellites due to the extremely high loads at launch.
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