The American company SpinLaunch has successfully used a centrifuge to launch a prototype stage of a suborbital rocket into the upper atmosphere. The corresponding video with the tests is shown on YouTube.
During the test, the projectile launched by the centrifuge reached a height of several kilometers. The tests took place on October 22 from Spaceport America in New Mexico. The company reported about them on November 10.
In the future, SpinLaunch plans to test a projectile with a rocket engine designed to launch a satellite into near-Earth orbit. It is expected that up to a height of about 60 kilometers, the system launched by the centrifuge will move by inertia, after which the power plant will turn on. In the future, the company plans to abandon the use of a rocket accelerator for launching spacecraft, using exclusively centrifugal force. Thus, it is planned to launch satellites weighing about 180 kilograms.
In February 2018, TechCrunch reported that the cost of launching small satellites using a catapult would not exceed 500 thousand dollars.
SpinLaunch was founded in 2014 by Jonathan Yani, who then sold the drone manufacturer Titan Aerospace to the Internet giant Google.
Ivan Potapov
