The company marked a milestone with its 10th kinetic launch with a demonstration for four of its potential customers, showing that its satellites and test equipment can withstand the force of a launch leaving the ground at top speed. It’s clear the system will never be suitable for human passengers. And it will need to provide still-greater gravities while achieving the speeds necessary to get to space. SpinLaunch’s A-33 Suborbital Mass Accelerator produced up to 10,000 gravities (Gs) during during its September 2022 test launch. But the company says it is working toward developing an orbital version.Īnother caveat. For that, you need speeds of 17,500 mph (28,000 km/hr). That’s not fast enough to get into Earth-orbit yet. The company has now used the machine to launch payloads at speeds up to 4,700 mph (7,500 kph). Army White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico.
And it’s located at Spaceport America, which is situated on 18,000 acres adjacent to the U.S. Basically, it’s the world’s biggest slingshot. The launcher stands more than 50 meters (165 feet) high, slightly taller than the 46-meter (151-foot) Statue of Liberty. And to that end the team has constructed an enormous centrifuge – inside a disk-shaped vacuum chamber – which the company says will eventually be able to fling an unpowered vehicle up into Earth-orbit. SpinLaunch says its goal is to provide affordable and rapid cargo launches to space. The payload went up (and was later recovered) from the Jornada del Muerto desert in the U.S. Late last month (September 2022), a plucky group of aerospace engineers and techs using an oversized centrifuge successfully tested their idea to throw a demo payload – including a NASA test package – high into the sky, at high speeds. According to SpinLaunch, the September 27 test demonstrated that hardware from potential customers can withstand the enormous pressure of the launch system. This is the 10th test for the company’s concept of flinging payloads to space. Guests tour the SpinLaunch A-33 Suborbital Mass Accelerator at Spaceport America in New Mexico before a test launch on September 27, 2022.
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