SpinLaunch wants to reinvent the wheel. Its engineers will build a powerful catapult with which they want to launch payloads into orbit. In the past, many companies wanted to do the same, but they failed. Payloads are to be launched into space with the help of a special catapult based on the HyperV Technologies Corporation concept developed in 1997 and known more widely in the world as Slingatron.
SpinLaunch was founded in 2014 in California and at the beginning of this year raised around $ 80 million to implement its interesting idea. A lot of companies from the Silicon Valley have already applied, including Alphabet.
The idea behind the concept is to partially abandon the need to use expensive chemical rockets to carry small loads into Earth's orbit. The company suggests that this solution is ideal for the military, because secret satellites can be carried into space with the help of such catapults one after another, without the media hype that often accompanies rocket launches.
The payloads are to be launched into space at a speed of over 8,000 km / h. Here there is the question of the high temperature created when this speed is reached at low altitude. Recently, the British and the Chinese announced jointly that they had developed special composite materials that can withstand the temperatures associated with hypersonic flights. SpinLaunch can use their gains.
The company's representatives believe that the cost of one mission is to be around 500,000 dollars, i.e. at least several dozen times cheaper than using rockets. The company is headquartered in Long Beach, California, but launches would take place from SpacePort America in New Mexico, where Virgin Galactic will be offering its space boundary tourist flights.
In the past, several companies wanted to implement such a crazy idea, but their efforts failed, and in the case of one, Arca Space, there was even one huge scam, during which more than 40 million dollars were extorted. How will SpinLaunch be? We will see. The project is to be ready by the end of 2021.