Kinetic orbital launchers
Rockets are one way to get things into orbit – but there's a growing number of alternatives in development that aim to do things significantly cheaper, by accelerating launch vehicles to hypersonic speeds on the ground, and either flinging or shooting them skyward, replacing first-stage launch rockets with a variety of interesting high-energy alternatives.
-
Rockets are expensive, so a number of kinetic launch startups are working on ways to simply yeet payloads into orbit and bring costs down. This one's very fun – a six-mile-long concrete cannon that'll squeeze launch vehicles to Mach 30 in one second. -
Space startup SpinLaunch's kinetic launch system will require payloads to endure 10,000 g and speeds of 5,000 mph (8,000 km/h) and in this regard, the company may have just passed its biggest test yet. -
SpinLaunch has released on-board footage from its eighth suborbital flight test, giving us a unique opportunity to imagine what it'd be like to be hurled skyward out of a centrifugal accelerator at more than a thousand miles per hour. -
Green Launch says it can fire a space vehicle skywards three times faster than SpinLaunch's kinetic launch system. Its huge hydrogen gas cannon can produce hypersonic launch velocities upwards of Mach 17, enabling orbital altitudes up to 1,000 km. -
NASA has signed up to test SpinLaunch's extraordinary whirl 'n' hurl space launch technology, which accelerates a launch vehicle to hypersonic speeds using an electric centrifuge arm instead of a rocket, hurling it skyward like a space discus. -
Startup SpinLaunch has been exploring alternatives to rockets through the development of what it calls the world's first kinetic space launch system, which literally flings satellites into orbit – and it's recently completed its first test flight.