A David armed with a high-tech slingshot to take on the Goliaths of the space sector? This is the challenge of the Californian start-up SpinLaunch. Its founder, Jonathan Yaney, imagined a rotating arm rotating at full speed in a vast vacuum chamber to propel a small rocket to an altitude of several tens of kilometers whose engine would take over for orbiting, offering, assures- he, reduced costs. A first test on a scale model took place in October in New Mexico and NASA has just announced that it will test this new mode of launch.
Resistance to dynamic and thermal pressure during acceleration, design, materials: “It’s an interesting engineering challenge, but it’s not going to revolutionize the space sector”estimates Christophe Bonnal, of the National Center for Space Studies, recalling that most of the energy necessary for putting into orbit will still have to be provided by the engines of the projectile.