An Inside Look: SpinLaunch Flight Test #7 

With any new technology the is a chance things will go wrong. If thing go wrong are they prepared to endure the adverse publicity this would bring?

@@donnairn3419 I don't think anyone took Starship's Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly's as a negative when attempting to land... everyone was aware it was in testing phase.

That would reveal too much of the failures involved in this nonsense.

Things go wrong. That's why we test. SpaceX has made that clear to the world and shows warts and all, and I think other companies should follow suit. Nothing tells you that something is ready than seeing it succeed from it's previous failures.

@@whatilearnttoday5295 Why the hate? No need to call it "nonsense". It certainly would have practical applications in a low gravity situation, like the Moon or Mars, or other... But if it makes you feel better to diss it, you're free to.

hahaha... yeah, the "launch vehicles" will turn into shooting stars before they ever reach the 5000mph goal.

TOTAL SCAM busted by real scientists MONTHS ago....... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ibSJ_yy96iE.html

(Without parachute if possible...)

...at full speed.

Me too

Shout if you come across this. 😉

@@ytrew9717 Considering the footage they've shown of the projectiles being recovered, I doubt very much that they're using parachutes.

I'm an engineer and I agree.

@@pmp1337 Thank you.

more similar to a catapult than trebuchet but yes

it's not trabuchet, it is actually lower tech, it's slingshot that kids used around the globe.

Maybe they would get better results if they used rocks :)

Great question actually

My uneducated guess would be that they’ve designed spinning mechanism’s total weight to be large enough in relation to the projectile to where the difference in sudden balance shift is within tolerence

@@sagearslan The rotator is subjected to the energy imparted to the projectile is when it’s launched. Your theory makes no sense because the rotator would be unbalanced when spinning up to launch speed.

I agree, I doubt this project is actually intending to launch astronauts or anything of value into space. It is more likely that they are riding the hype of other legitimate companies and are infact hoping to develop something they can sell for military applications.

No chance this would be used for humans, and the current projectile looked like it survived an impact with the ground from 30,000ft without taking much damage. If they scaled up the entire launch system then I imagine it would be feasible to get at least most of the way to space, then they could also strap a rocket motor to the back of the projectile to carry it the rest of the way into orbit?

I think this is still a technology demonstrator. In future the projectile would have rockets fitted to complete the launch and to take it into orbit

@@sil8127 The problem for me is I don't see how rockets could survive the G forces let alone the guidance system.

I was thinking exactly the same thing…. That’s a lot of Gs

How did u invest

@@chvishal I got an email of a bank account from some guy who works there one day so I put some money in it.

That’s what your mom said

This would have been easier if nobody at Spinlaunch had ever studied law.

I've been asking this same question for awhile now with no response. Maybe it's some proprietary system so they can't really say, but I really have no idea how they can achieve this. I did hear something about a "water brake" during this video so possibly they use water to counteract the forces somehow.

My guess would be the counter weight being half the weight of the projectile with the system being able to handle the unbalance. Once the projectile leaves, the weight would shift 180 degrees to the other end of the arm but still only be half the weight of the projectile.

@@Mi-ck At the speed quoted and guessing the radius as about 20 m (scaled from the guys in the cherry picker) they’re pulling about a 1000g on that missile. If you’ve ever lost a balancing weight from a wheel you’ll know that even a half ounce weight can throw things right off balance. I don’t think your idea would work. Not sure what would, though🥴

My guess would be a sliding weight that gets released on the launch arm at the time of release to compensate the payload weight, and a huge braking system to stop it ASAP The sliding counterweight can be much bigger than the projectile and thus doesn't need to move much along the arm to keep the balance, and the opposite counterweight could also move closer to the axis at the same time. Timing needs to be perfect of course

@@robertlane6431 Let's take a look at scale. Per the SpinLaunch website: "The first generation launch system is designed to launch satellites weighing up to 200 kilograms." About 440 pounds. 440lbs + another 160 lbs for the fuselage? So, let's make a vague, uneducated assumption of ~600 lbs total weight, is going to be a lot easier to manage the counter-forces than if we were talking about 6 tons. 600 lbs rotating at 1,000g is a 600,000 pound load. 6 tons turns into a 12 million pound load. According to patents filed by the company, a counterbalance spinning opposite the rocket gets released at the same time, preventing the tether from becoming unbalanced. I'd seen some discussion regarding the concept of using water as the counter-weight. In theory, the combination of rapid re-pressurization, and those speeds would vaporize the water almost immediately, so I doubt you'd have to worry about handling a solid 600 pound mass rapidly decelerating. For those pondering it, the patent also states that the rocket coasts for about a minute and ignites its engines at roughly 200,000 feet. So, yes. It is intended to have a sort of "second stage" engine"

Velveeta cheese wouldn't survive those G forces.

G forces would be far worse than this air pressure wave I assume

This is exactly what i was thinking, also to get something into orbit using this methodology i cant imagine how fast it would need to spin in the chamber. There is no way in the world you could use this to launch anything living.

@@sierramikekilo6925 Depends. The Gs wouldn't be instantaneous.

Electronics aren't the issue really. Guided artillery shells like the M982 are packed with them, and go through much worse during firing

Except they don’t have a board of distinguished 90 year old directors serving as window dressing.

It defies physics, this will never be a working idea.

It's cool, but it can't work on Earth where we have a thick atmosphere. This would however be a great way to send raw materials back to Earth from the Moon..

@@goemboeck it will get a projectile close to space and save fuel that’s the whole point, not to launch directly to orbit…

@@goemboeck this tech is also good for having on the moon to send stuff back home idk

@@CarrotSurvivor that I fully agree to. But by the looks of it, they try to use it on Earth to toss another one to Moon, that is bound to fail :)

I'm guessing it is released in the opposite direction.

@@dariozanze4929 Hell of a lot of kinetic energy to dissipate right quick!

@@vermontsownboy6957 They release it into a reinforced part of the vac chamber.

@@dariozanze4929 Opposite direction means shooting it into ground.....

Every venture into space is a costly boondoggle that brings our ecosystem one step closer to destruction while we look at the sparkly lights.

Chucking moon rocks and ores from moon might work. Low gravity and a vacuum already. 5313 mph is escape velocity. 25000 mph for earth plus a thick atmosphere.

🙄🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤡

You must have good eyesight.

That might make more sense than on earth.

Hi Rob, Yes! We're planning on reusing the orbital vehicle aeroshells. The flight test vehicle shown in this video is the 2nd flight of that specific vehicle, and it's ready for a 3rd flight after having been successfully excavated and inspected.

@@spinlaunch6288 Cool! That's very impressive.

@@spinlaunch6288 is the orbital rocket going to be reusable, or just the aeroshells

Hello good luck with the rest of testing and what is turn around time for reusable

@@NekoAerospaceSFS There's no way the rocket could be recoverable. Mass margins are far too small.

^*100% correct- It’s pointless masturbation.

I'm guessing you're a fan of spacex

The Army might be interested.

@@spanqueluv9er if everybody had the same “can’t do” attitude as you, humanity would get very far. It takes courage to think outside the box, but that is where the greatest rewards lie.

Costly?. This one seems a lot cheaper than using rockets to launch satelite

SHHHHHHH ;D

They don't. It's just a scam.

I was just thinking that.

Your mom gives me hope

If you put this on the moon though…. why constrain the implementation on Earth only?

I doubt their plan is to have one of these on the moon. With the only task of firing rock samples back to earth? I'm guessing their plan is to see how high they can launch with this machine the once they have maxxed out switch to rocket boosters

@@John...44... Rock samples? Why not rare metals?

@@Bob_Adkins good point. Never thought of that

This accelerator is only a testbed. the real one will be larger and faster, but the projectile will still use a motor to reach orbit- as throwing something into orbit is not possible

Based on a centrifuge diameter of 33 meters (which may be the outer diameter) and a launch speed of 1200 mph, I get a G force of 1778. So maybe around 2000 G's.

And the calculations, for good measure. Launch velocity: 1200 mph (1931.16 kph) 32186.00 meters per minute Chamber diameter: 33 meters Chamber circumference: 103.67 meters Revolutions per minute: 32186 / 103.67 = 310.47 RPM Relative centrifugal force: (310.47/1000)^2 * 16500 * 1.118 = 1778.14 RCF (Gs)

@@eluenskybender2948 Wow... Nice work. Great math problem to work out. I just don't see this as viable for sensitive electronics or other stuff launched into space currently.. You think a Starlink satellite could withstand those G forces?

@@avflyguy I don't have any knowledge about this. But I doubt that any "ordinary" payload would be able to sustain the 20,000 G's that some claim is neccesary to get into orbit. But you could of course increase the diameter of the centrifuge, which would lower the G's. But I still think it's an interesting project, whether or not it will be succesful.

Well when you say it like that..

Pretty much impossible for this to work

Gotta start somewhere

@@DantheMan1933 for starting 8 years ago and only 1/5 of the way to obtaining the speed necessary, 32 more years to go just to get the speed and that's the easy part.

IKR... The speed they will need to achieve to get a usauble payload into space exceeds the tensile strength of the materials we have. The G Forces alone will damage any satilite they try to put into space.. This will never be feasible.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jar1LTxxAeM.html

Maybe there's a deadweight that moves radially outward toward where the rocket was, exactly at the moment when the rocket is released?

@@cedriceveleigh It would need to slide about 50m in about 0.00006 seconds. The arrest would have _more_ disruptive force than leaving it unbalanced. To have a better grasp of just how fast 450 RPM is, a helicopter operates at 400-500 RPM. The concept is to have something 3 and a half times as long, spinning at the same rate, release something the weight of a satellite and chemical rocket from the tip of one of the blades and not have the system _utterly_ destroy itself instantly.

Who knows what this could be used for. For all we know this could be the main method used in the future to launch cargo off the moon.

...or launching astronauts off of the Moon. This scheme fits with Futurama's vision of having an amusement park up there.

They aren’t here to sell you on it. Wonder if it could sling smart munitions?

@@jaredf6205 Exactly. Research like this often finds uses in ways not necessarily what folks think it's for.

@UgandaBeKiddingME You personally are buying satellite launch? Off RU-vid?

Probably a hydraulically shifted counter weight and/or a brake, in this video they mention a "water brake".

@@aless5207 yeah maybe 🤷‍♂️ the forces at play here are huge though, the amount of centrifugally generated pull on that arm when it gets up to full speed with the projectile still attached is huge that is the stored energy that will throw that thing half way to space, and then in a fraction of a second it's gone leaving that thing still spinning at full speed, that is an instantaneous and massive change in balance I don't see how anything mechanical could be made to react quick enough and precisely enough with the amount of mass that is needed to balance it again, but they obviously have it worked out, unless its all BS which wouldn't actually surprise me now to be honest 🤷‍♂️

@@ats-3693 If the arm and mechanism weigh 20 tons and the projectile weighs 40kg I don't think there would be enough of an imbalance that couldn't be dealt with.

@@rjk69 40 kg travelling at 500 m/s... That's 5 MJ.

@@ats-3693 I tried to brainstorm it last time I watched one of these videos... I thought perhaps they pull the counterweight in really quickly to re-balance. If you had a decent hydraulic set up I think the speed and force is achievable. Again I'm not an expert but hydraulic stuff is pretty good at this kind of thing. The other/additional option is just to stop the arm as quickly as possible. If you had appropriate energy storage you could take the energy out of the unbalanced arm very quickly. I don't think this demo is BS (like faked) but I also don't see how the challenges of a system like this outweigh the potential advantages and the company might be leveraging the "sustainable, electric..." marketing factor. This could piss off skeptics because they've already been given a NASA contract which implies a govt cheque... even if they are honest in their venture, any space money going to BS is taking away from other ventures. However, its not the first time NASA would have spent a lot of money for minimal return... ;)

i'm an idiot and have no idea what i'm talking about. i would have a counter counter weight on a rail at centre mass during wind up. as you release the rocket you release the counter counter weight which slides down the rail and replaces the rocket mass. Give me my noble prize!

@@NotPoodle love your idea. That has to take place in 1-2ms

Didn't they mention a water brake? Or maybe I misheard

They won't ever answer you.. Because this is a scam. Another kkckstarter type ripoff.

@@mastermnd22 i agree.. at the very least they are currently very far away from something usable, but likely it's infeasible completely.

Can't, this is a BS project. Anyone with a opinion has already said it is a dumb idea. Cute though, like a looney tunes creation.

I seem to remember hearing that the G forces are such that solid state electronics will survive it, provided they are engineering correctly.

Well, very basic things will need to be sent into space. Like water. However, you would need some kind of propulsion or guidance system too, which means things that can break.

lol paid commenter 💥

"I thought it was just a gimmick when i first heard about it, but when i got closer and took a careful look at it... it was still a gimmick!"

It disintegrated before hitting the ground.

@@Arcticfox7 Did you not see the vehicle when they dug it up?

​@@geoffreyofmonmouth9796 That was before the vessel/projectile was beamed into another dimension.

Less than your mom.

it is going nowhere .

It's a scam. Search for Thunderfoot here on RU-vid and see his debunk on this "invention"

@@Lexitivium thubderfoot video is just a piece a garbage, the guy makes claim and assumption based on marketing videos, it's just plain bad, Scott Manley's video on the subject is much, much more interesting

@@RomainCavallini Nope. Thunderfoot claims nothing and just bebunks everything that defies reality. You're welcome ;-)

Perfect give it to the Russians they’ll take any old junk.

second stage rockets with satellites. Our hardware can definitely sustain slow acceleration to 1000gs. We were firing vacuum tube computer guidance systems long before solid state silicone.

@@ac.creations It can't even get something to orbit, even if it survives the flight. AND if it survives and somehow reaches stable orbit, it is still hundreds of times less efficient than a rocket. Bingo bango bongo, what a machine.

@@dazm901 that's not even close to the same application of force

@@alanwatts8239 it's a scaled down proof of concept. They said the big one would be 300 ft diameter. Taking away the first stage rocket and using electricity that could be made renewably is highly likely to be more energy efficient than producing chemical fuel.

@@ac.creations You don't get it, fuel efficiency goes beyond fuel consumption in one stage. The main goal of a rocket is to get payload to space, if you have a big rocket like the Falcon heavy that can take 60 tons of cargo to orbit how is this thing supposed to compete? you'd need hundreds, if not thousands of those little launches to compensate for a regular rocket launch? how are you going to catch all of them? how do you expect to haul fragile electronics when it has to go through tens of thousands of G's? Not that it's impossibile, but in space you already have to worry about radiation, intense heat, intense cold, micrometeorites, weight, and now you're adding something else for the engineers to solve. And you'd need a ton of engineering to do that, and it's going to cost more, and more for what? A little rocket that even the Shuttle can outperform, a vehicle that was abandoned because it was too expensive compared to it's overral efficiency. It just makes no sense, sure, it might work if you put billions of dollars into it and some decades, but it will still be outperformed.

you trolling?

@@aszthrotep4632 If they can get costs down, and offer end-to-end building of hardened satellites which can withstand so many Gs for customers, I can see no reason why they can't carve a (small) niche in the small-sat launch market. Nevertheless, that market is quite oversaturated and I can easily also see them going bust. Hopeful but skeptical about their future, in other words. I was convinced that it was a massive scam maybe like a year ago, but I think if they manage to cut down on costs and cadence I think they can survive.

What if the rocket carried some fuel switched on boosters after reaching 30000 ft to reach orbit ... Fuel consumption will be much lesser. A promising technology indeed

@@AbhishekVerma-il4or why not make an extra boost with rubber bands?

It's not designed to launch satellites there too fragile, it's main advantage is being able to send alot of materials to orbit super cheap which is our main hurdle to constructing rockets in space or pretty much any other large structure

Someone that doesn’t think

You have thought more about this than they have.

I believe there is still a rocket involved. They launch it a tens of thousands of meters up then start the engines. It's interesting to see if it works

@@nonethelessfirst8519 jajajajajajajajajaj

Imagine a satellite deorbiting into surface level pressure of atmosphere. Explosion. KABOOM

NO

The kind of people who invest in this are frightened and disgusted by SI units. Wouldn't be good PR.

They use m/s for velocity and ft for height... why?

@@siyun5 MURRICAAAA FUCK YEA But yeah, SI units is a must....

@@siyun5 Feet are always used in aviation, regardless of the country. The rest of the imperial stuff tho yeah is super useless. SI is the scientific and sensical way to make measurements.

They forgot they were supposed to be doing science.

That sounds like a good way to destroy both the rocket and the spinlaunch system. The fuels inside those rockets don’t deal with centrifugal force very kindly.

why would they include portions of the videos where experiment doesnt go as intended on a short edited youtube video? not that they've provided full stream of project from launch to touchdown.

If the objects can't tolerate the Gs, this won't be the right launch system for them.

@@uku4171 which is 99.99% of the loads going to space unless you launch a rock.

@@leosedf your phone could probably tolerate it. Most electronics could, I would think. It's a smallsat laucher after all. And it's not like they were planning to take a big part of the market for themselves. They're not going to take Rocketlab's place or anything. Just a small alternative that will hopefully compete at cost.

@@uku4171 yeah I u derstand what you are saying but this won't work

@ian trofimov not relevant, really. Basically only SpaceX, RosCosmos, and China have vehicles that fly humans to orbit. NASA will soon be back on the list with SLS, and I think ULA will fly the Starliner.

Those solid slugs are all this thing will ever "launch."

Tem vários "algos" de muito errado nos dados que eles passam nos vídeos. Coisas que quebrariam regras da física. Muita coisa não bate aí....

Math, lots of math.

20k g

Honest answer: more than most things can handle.

😂

the employees can definitely use it at the espresso machine :D

Many congratulations on coming up with that idea! Spinlaunch has never answered that publicly that I know of, but that's the current speculation -- keeping the tail attached would create a moment of torque that could largely cancel the angular velocity. Their first test flight had the projectile exiting at an angle of maybe 10 degrees and there were visible oscillations in yaw, maybe 3 full cycles before stabilizing. The last two (#7 & 8) have been essentially straight and did not show any bobbling.

LMFAO 😂

There are no mysteries, it can all be calculated, and rest assured, they have done the math