SpinLaunch

SpinLaunch is building the world’s lowest cost space launch system capable of placing small satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). It employs ground-based kinetic energy to first accelerate a vehicle to hypersonic speeds, launching it on a hypersonic glide ascent out of the atmosphere prior to orbital insertion. While incremental gains have been made in rocket technologies to reduce space launch costs, alternative approaches are necessary to reduce those costs and increase launch rates by the orders of magnitude necessary to facilitate exponential growth in the space transportation industry. Since the beginning of the space program, ground-based non-rocket launch systems such as rail guns and ram accelerators have been proposed to achieve this goal, however all have employed unproven technologies with cost-prohibitive initial capital investment.

SpinLaunch utilizes existing technology and components from oil/gas/mining and wind turbine industries to construct an innovative circular mass acceleration system which achieves very high launch speeds without the need for enormous power generation or massive infrastructure. An electric motor drive spins a tether and launch vehicle inside a circular vacuum chamber until it reaches launch speed. The vehicle is then released through a tangential exit port into its launch trajectory. After ascending above the atmosphere, a relatively small, low-cost onboard rocket provides the final required velocity for orbital insertion. Because the majority of the energy required to reach orbit is sourced from ground-based electricity as opposed to complex onboard rocket propulsion, total launch cost is reduced by an order of magnitude over existing launch systems.

SpinLaunch has a working prototype of its launcher and plans to begin launching by 2022. It will charge less than $500,000 per launch and be able to send up multiple rockets per day. The world’s top rocket companies usually launch about once a month, and most of SpinLaunch’s rivals have been aiming for $2 million to $10 million per launch for small rockets. SpinLaunch would easily be the cheapest and most prolific small launcher on the market.