spinning earth planet with satellites animation

This rocket attaches to a carbon-fiber arm powered by an electric motor that accelerates to around 5,000 miles per hour. First, space cargo is encased in a dummy rocket.

The basic idea behind SpinLaunch is simple. SpinLaunch hurls cargo through the stratosphere at hypersonic speed with the help of a whizzing arm. “It can be done more inexpensively, dramatically more inexpensively.” Meanwhile, SpinLaunch could yeet something into space for around $250,000, Wrenn estimates. “Space launch is an incredibly expensive endeavor,” he says, with launches costing in the tens of millions of dollars. The system offers a radically cheaper and more sustainable launch method compared to today’s rockets, according to David Wrenn, SpinLaunch’s vice president of technology. With enough speed (around 5,000 miles per hour), the launcher could send small satellites dozens of miles above the planet’s surface, where a small rocket would finish the job and usher them to low-Earth orbit.

Now, a massive version will spin payloads inside a vacuum-sealed chamber before flinging them upward. The aptly named startup SpinLaunch is building a launch system inspired by the centrifuge, a lab device that spins fluids, such as blood, to separate their components. But one company thinks it can change that age-old paradigm with an electric motor, a vacuum chamber, and an arm that spins really, really fast. Since Sputnik, it has remained standard to blast a highly expensive metal tube off Earth with the help of a controlled explosion. If you want to go to space anytime soon, you’re going to need a massive rocket.

Spinning earth planet with satellites animation