IVO Quantised Inertia Thruster

[D_Dom]

52 mN/W is significant, I do hope they demonstrate an ability to turn thrust on/off while changing attitude.

 No doubt there will always be questions, I look forward to the advancing state of the art based on their claims of thermal vacuum testing.

[InterestedEngineer]

With the noise in the measurements of Lightsail 2 leading people to question whether they achieved solar propulsion (despite the mechanism behind solar sails not being in question), it would take extreme efforts to raise any thrust value above the noise floor of LEO operations (photon pressure, drag, self-emission, outgassing, geomagnetic field interaction, etc etc).
This will not be a 'slam dunk' experiment as some seem to expect.

at 52mN per W, they are far above any noise floors.   With a couple of watts they will be able to maneuver as well as any Starlink can.

[InterestedEngineer]

At 52mN/W, I'm not sure why they don't just test this on Earth as a power generator.

One of these on a 1 meter spoke can generate .052N-m of torque with one watt input.  Put that spoke on a hub and attach the hub to standard electrical generator.

P = torque*rotational velocity

Run that at 100 radians/sec (about 955 rpm) and you've got 5.2 watts of power that you can convert into electricity.

Not including inefficiencies, that's power amplification of 5.2x with a trivial lab setup.

One would want to use 2 or more to make the system rotationally balanced of course, but the torques add linearly so the amplification is still 5.2x.

Where all that power is coming from, I'll let the physicists decide.

But more power out than in should convince anyone.  The lab setup would be on the order of $5,000, instead of $500,000 for a launch.

Probably could do it for $500 in my garage, if IVO can supply me two QI force thingies

[crow_kraehe]

At 52mN/W, I'm not sure why they don't just test this on Earth as a power generator.

One of these on a 1 meter spoke can generate .052N-m of torque with one watt input.  Put that spoke on a hub and attach the hub to standard electrical generator.

P = torque*rotational velocity

Run that at 100 radians/sec (about 955 rpm) and you've got 5.2 watts of power that you can convert into electricity.

Not including inefficiencies, that's power amplification of 5.2x with a trivial lab setup.

One would want to use 2 or more to make the system rotationally balanced of course, but the torques add linearly so the amplification is still 5.2x.

Where all that power is coming from, I'll let the physicists decide.

But more power out than in should convince anyone.  The lab setup would be on the order of $5,000, instead of $500,000 for a launch.

Probably could do it for $500 in my garage, if IVO can supply me two QI force thingies

I agree with this sentiment. You could easily get a whole POUND of thrust with just 10 of these small devices, each running at 10 Watts. If they truly have a device capable of this level of thrust, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to splurge on an entire satellite system + launch simply to "run tests" to prove that it works.

My assumption is that this is part of a publicity and marketing campaign: tell everyone you are going to do "an orbital test"   and then collect on some fresh new crowdfunding.

As an aside, the IVO website also appears to be hastily put together and its articles have several spelling and grammar issues throughout. This whole thing is probably someone's or some groups' attempt at generating "passive income", in a manner of speaking.