Author Topic: SpinLaunch: General Company and Development Updates and Discussions  (Read 142916 times)

Offline Cheapchips

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Real Engineering have a 40 minute documentary coming on Saturday.  The trailer has some airlock clips.


Offline Steven Pietrobon

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They use an air lock to exit the vehicle. The first photo shows inside door closing and the outside door opening as the vehicle passes through.
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline Navier–Stokes

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Offline TrevorMonty

Watched the video lots of cool engineering stuff in there and they have answered lot of technical questions. Vacuum chamber is cheap part as its built of mild steel, nothing special in its design and pumps only need to pull vacuum to equivalent of 40kms. The high tech stuff is ultra fast opening and closing airlock doors as LV goes through airlock.

I was thinking about electricity side of things and realised tether can spin down slowing and inject energy back into grid for credit.

One thing that wasn't answered was orbit targetting. Does structure need to rotate in north south arc to support different orbits or does LV go straight up then redirect its self downrange using control surfaces. The later makes structure design lot simpler.
« Last Edit: 08/08/2022 09:48 pm by zubenelgenubi »

Online trimeta

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One thing that wasn't answered was orbit targetting. Does structure need to rotate in north south arc to support different orbits or does LV go straight up then redirect its self downrange using control surfaces. The later makes structure design lot simpler.

I've been arguing this over on Ars recently, and much to my chagrin the consensus there is "Making large complex structures rotate is quite simple, so they just need to rotate the entire vacuum chamber (including exit aperture) around the centrifuge arm; this can easily be done while the chamber remains in its vacuum state. Or if they want to make things really optimal, the entire vacuum chamber+centrifuge motors will rotate around the gravity axis; in this latter case, they don't actually build on a hill, since the sloped part is also rotating."

Offline Comga

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One thing that wasn't answered was orbit targetting. Does structure need to rotate in north south arc to support different orbits or does LV go straight up then redirect its self downrange using control surfaces. The later makes structure design lot simpler.

I've been arguing this over on Ars recently, and much to my chagrin the consensus there is "Making large complex structures rotate is quite simple, so they just need to rotate the entire vacuum chamber (including exit aperture) around the centrifuge arm; this can easily be done while the chamber remains in its vacuum state. Or if they want to make things really optimal, the entire vacuum chamber+centrifuge motors will rotate around the gravity axis; in this latter case, they don't actually build on a hill, since the sloped part is also rotating."

Isn’t this a rehash of the question “Why do rockets launch upward?” to which the answer is to get out of the dense lower atmosphere, not because “Space is up there.” The classical historic illustration of orbiting is a canon firing horizontally from an exaggerated mountain.

All orbital rockets (to date) have balanced the lower and upper stages so the latter achieves orbital velocity. If Spinlaunch were to fire its orbital attempt straight up it would be doing no balancing. This would leave the entire 7km/sec to the upper stage, and we know what a miserable mass fraction the Rocket Equation gives for that.  (It’s pretty clear Spinlaunch’s rocket couldn’t get itself to that speed with zero payload or they would have been beaten to orbit by “Rockoon”. :P ) They are obviously smarter than that.
So they have to optimize the firing elevation at something lower than 90 degrees (straight up). The higher the angle, the more delta-V required of the thrown rocket, and the lower mass penalty for each bit of inclination change. The lower the angle the longer the path and drag thru the atmosphere and the larger capacity penalty for any plane change.
If it fired East, at an elevation of 45 degrees and a muzzle velocity of 2.5 km/s, in ~3 minutes it would be at ~150 km doing ~2km/sec, minus the loss from plowing through ~1.4 atmospheres at hypersonic velocity. That still leaves ~5 km/s for the upper stage.
A 10 degree plane change then only requires ~50 m/s additional velocity. That is not insignificant with the logarithmic Rocket Equation, but not fatal.
So I guess that Spinlaunch’s first orbit capable system will be pitched (edit: low to the) East  with a fixed azimuth.
For their sake, I hope they get that far and that we see if they address launching to diverse inclinations through a rotatable system or through multiple fixed systems.
« Last Edit: 08/08/2022 07:09 pm by Comga »
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Offline edzieba

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With some additional drag losses, they can also trade vertical for horizontal velocity during the early stages of flight via aerodynamic control (i.e. perform a pitchover).

Offline FutureSpaceTourist

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https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1572256248283951104

Quote
Wild, man. SpinLaunch announced today that it has closed a $71 million Series B funding round. The company says it is on target to place satellites into orbit by 2026.

Edit to add:

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220920005499/en/SpinLaunch-Closes-71M-Series-B-Funding-Round
« Last Edit: 09/20/2022 05:47 pm by FutureSpaceTourist »

Offline Robotbeat

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Glad to hear!

I wouldn’t invest a red cent… except as entertainment value and just exploring a new part of the trade space that has been entirely conceptual for too long (and therefore the IP that can be generated from this could end up just as valuable, or more, than the launch service itself). This is going to be fun to watch!
« Last Edit: 09/20/2022 08:25 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline russianhalo117

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Glad to hear!

I wouldn’t invest a red cent… except as entertainment value and just exploring a new part of the trade space that has been entirely conceptual for too long (and therefore the IP that can be generated from this could end up just as valuable, or more, than the launch service itself). This is going to be fun to watch!
Probably best for suborbital and military experiments IMPO for a long while. Would replace the majority retired military motors currently used.

Online Bob Niland

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If there's a video of #10, or even a mention of the altitude reached, I haven't been able to find it.
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Offline Navier–Stokes

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Offline jstrotha0975

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Glad to hear!

I wouldn’t invest a red cent… except as entertainment value and just exploring a new part of the trade space that has been entirely conceptual for too long (and therefore the IP that can be generated from this could end up just as valuable, or more, than the launch service itself). This is going to be fun to watch!
Probably best for suborbital and military experiments IMPO for a long while. Would replace the majority retired military motors currently used.

The Military want's this as a weapon.

Online matthewkantar

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Glad to hear!

I wouldn’t invest a red cent… except as entertainment value and just exploring a new part of the trade space that has been entirely conceptual for too long (and therefore the IP that can be generated from this could end up just as valuable, or more, than the launch service itself). This is going to be fun to watch!
Probably best for suborbital and military experiments IMPO for a long while. Would replace the majority retired military motors currently used.

The Military want's this as a weapon.

-citation needed-

Online trimeta

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Glad to hear!

I wouldn’t invest a red cent… except as entertainment value and just exploring a new part of the trade space that has been entirely conceptual for too long (and therefore the IP that can be generated from this could end up just as valuable, or more, than the launch service itself). This is going to be fun to watch!
Probably best for suborbital and military experiments IMPO for a long while. Would replace the majority retired military motors currently used.

The Military want's this as a weapon.

Weapon, no.

Launcher of dummy targets to test their actual weapons against, yes.

Offline Kryten

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 Even then that's a very limited use case due to the fixed site and angles - current ABM targets are usually air-launched. I also fail to see how this massive piece of infrastructure would be a cost improvement over the current occasional launches of vehicles produced with surplus missile components.

Rampant speculation ahead.

I think there's plenty of potential for using SpinLaunch's tech as electrically powered long-range artillery; sort of a simpler, cheaper, quicker to develop railgun. Pair it with guided artillery shells and it becomes potentially interesting, if your willing to spend the money.

The Navy would be the obvious choice, but I think it's probably a bit too high risk for them. If the spinning arm snaps on land, it's bad, but it's probably only the launcher that's destroyed. If that happens on a ship, you likely sink the ship. Then again, it may not be any more of a risk than having a bunch of explosive on board. You'd have to do a risk assessment.

The Army had a program for a 1000 mi gun that was cancelled just earlier this year, back in May. Whether that was due to the traditional gun design having problems, or because they just didn't care about the capability that much, isn't clear to me. If it was the former, maybe they'd be interested in using this as a weapon system in the longer term.

Personally, I don't see how you could follow the events in the Ukraine war and not be dumping as much money into long range, precision artillery as possible. Think about everything that's been hit with HIMARS. Now imagine that those attacks could be made on a cheaper per shot basis, from Warsaw. So I predict a lot of DoD investment in technologies like this, and in more standard missiles/guided-rocket artillery, in the aftermath of the Ukraine War.
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Online meekGee

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Rampant speculation ahead.

I think there's plenty of potential for using SpinLaunch's tech as electrically powered long-range artillery; sort of a simpler, cheaper, quicker to develop railgun. Pair it with guided artillery shells and it becomes potentially interesting, if your willing to spend the money.

The Navy would be the obvious choice, but I think it's probably a bit too high risk for them. If the spinning arm snaps on land, it's bad, but it's probably only the launcher that's destroyed. If that happens on a ship, you likely sink the ship. Then again, it may not be any more of a risk than having a bunch of explosive on board. You'd have to do a risk assessment.

The Army had a program for a 1000 mi gun that was cancelled just earlier this year, back in May. Whether that was due to the traditional gun design having problems, or because they just didn't care about the capability that much, isn't clear to me. If it was the former, maybe they'd be interested in using this as a weapon system in the longer term.

Personally, I don't see how you could follow the events in the Ukraine war and not be dumping as much money into long range, precision artillery as possible. Think about everything that's been hit with HIMARS. Now imagine that those attacks could be made on a cheaper per shot basis, from Warsaw. So I predict a lot of DoD investment in technologies like this, and in more standard missiles/guided-rocket artillery, in the aftermath of the Ukraine War.
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Offline Asteroza

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Rampant speculation ahead.

I think there's plenty of potential for using SpinLaunch's tech as electrically powered long-range artillery; sort of a simpler, cheaper, quicker to develop railgun. Pair it with guided artillery shells and it becomes potentially interesting, if your willing to spend the money.

The Navy would be the obvious choice, but I think it's probably a bit too high risk for them. If the spinning arm snaps on land, it's bad, but it's probably only the launcher that's destroyed. If that happens on a ship, you likely sink the ship. Then again, it may not be any more of a risk than having a bunch of explosive on board. You'd have to do a risk assessment.

The Army had a program for a 1000 mi gun that was cancelled just earlier this year, back in May. Whether that was due to the traditional gun design having problems, or because they just didn't care about the capability that much, isn't clear to me. If it was the former, maybe they'd be interested in using this as a weapon system in the longer term.

Personally, I don't see how you could follow the events in the Ukraine war and not be dumping as much money into long range, precision artillery as possible. Think about everything that's been hit with HIMARS. Now imagine that those attacks could be made on a cheaper per shot basis, from Warsaw. So I predict a lot of DoD investment in technologies like this, and in more standard missiles/guided-rocket artillery, in the aftermath of the Ukraine War.

A naval cannon version of their current prototype on a turntable, within a big boxy ship like the new San Antonio class LST's ( which are being pitched as a base design template for all sorts of missions like ABM or arsenal ship) I could see from a layout perspective, but the thing is you need a much higher rate of fire to be equivalent to EMRG or a salvo launch of VLS missiles. The alternatives are committing to a larger projectile to compensate for poor rate of fire (not a great solution), or the multicannon route (which puts you into the realm of a containerized system slotted into something that looks like a big container ship, so effectively an arsenal ship in a cheap commercial format).

Also, you need a guided projectile to be really usable. Yes you can crib guidance from Excalibur shells and the HVP work done for EMRG, but that ain't that cheap.

Once you go guided though, you have to compare yourself to GMLRS systems like HiMARS, which have much more benign launch conditions enabling cheaper guidance, the launchers are effectively COTS with plenty of stored rocket motor bodies available (new motors are pretty cheap too).

Army usage isn't really feasible due to size/portage/setup issues. They wanted a supercannon in a similar format to the old Atomic Annie cannon. You are not going to get that with Spinlaunch.


Personally, I think military use as typical deployed cannon is not likely outside of the above mention of naval use. Non deployed, such as a direct ascent style ASAT, is a different kettle of fish, and such a capability would translate to domestic ABM defense (though the fire rate requirement makes that problematic without a cannon array).


Commercial use, in my mind, really hinges on partnering with a propellant depot company for bulk propellant delivery, and an OTV commercial ecosystem, but that would hinge on setting up on the coast of Brazil at the equator, at least to enable all the azimuths necessary for common depot orbits.

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