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Spinlaunch completes suborbital launch without engine (youtube.com)
12 points by danielandrews43 1687 days ago
3 comments

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10186369/The... has some more info:

"A 10ft-long projectile was rapidly accelerated to thousands of miles an hour in a rotating arm before being released for launch 'in less than a millisecond'.

The first suborbital flight used about 20 per cent of the accelerator's full power capacity and reached a test altitude 'in the tens of thousands of feet,' Yaney said.

The vehicle used did not have a rocket engine onboard but SpinLaunch does plan to add one, as well as other internal systems, in future test flights. "

Questions:

1. How high did it go?

2. How fast was it going when it exited the launcher?

3. How much did the launched object ("lawn dart") weigh?

Q1 is most interesting. Q2 is right behind Q1.

I do suborbital launches every day. Paper in to the bin, me in to bed...

I love the idea of the project, but some numbers would be nice indeed.

Per Scott Manley[1] release velocity was Mach 1, they're targeting Mach ~7 for the final version.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAczd3mt3X0

Sweet idea but that blinding pure white control room is a bit much.
Hey man how can you tell they're serious scientists otherwise