SpinLaunch

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SpinLaunch Inc.
TypePrivate
IndustryAerospace
Headquarters4350 E Conant St,
Long Beach, California
,
United States
Key people
  • Jonathan Yaney, CEO
Number of employees
Est. 70-100
Websitewww.spinlaunch.com
Footnotes / references
California Secretary of State,[1] Built in LA [2]

SpinLaunch is a spaceflight technology development company working on mass accelerator technology to move payloads to space.[3] As of January 2020, the company has raised US$80 million in funding, with investors including Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Airbus Ventures, Catapult Ventures, Lauder Partners, John Doerr and Byers Family.[4]

History[]

SpinLaunch was founded in 2014 by Jonathan Yaney in Sunnyvale, California. The company's current headquarters are in Long Beach, California.[5] In 2020, SpinLaunch continues development of its 140,000 square-foot (13,000 m2) corporate headquarters in Long Beach, and of its flight test facility at Spaceport America in New Mexico, which it leased in 2019.[6]

In late 2021, SpinLaunch was named one of the "World's Best Employers in the Space Industry" by Everything Space, a recruitment platform specializing in the space industry.[7]

Technology[]

SpinLaunch is developing a kinetic energy space launch system that reduces dependency on traditional chemical rockets, with the goal of significantly lowering the cost of access to space while increasing the frequency of launch. The technology uses a vacuum-sealed centrifuge to spin a rocket and then hurl it to space at up to 5,000 miles per hour (8,000 km/h). The rocket then ignites its engines at an altitude of roughly 200,000 ft (61,000 m) to reach orbital speed of 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 km/h). If successful, the acceleration concept is projected to both lower the cost of launches and to use much less power, with the price of a single space launch reduced by a factor of 20 to under US$500,000.[8][9]

Flight testing[]

At Spaceport America in New Mexico on 22 October 2021, SpinLaunch conducted the first vertical test of their accelerator at 20% of its full power capacity, hurling a 10-foot (3.0 m) long passive projectile to an altitude of "tens of thousands of feet". This test accelerator is 108 ft (33 m) in diameter, which makes it a one-third scale of the operational system that is being designed.[10][11][12]

See also[]

External links[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Business Search". businesssearch.sos.ca.gov. California Secretary of State. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
  2. ^ "Built in LA SpinLaunch Overview". Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  3. ^ Oberhaus, Daniel (15 October 2019). "Stories of People Who Are Racing to Save Us". Wired. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  4. ^ Chowdhry, Amit (20 January 2020). "SpinLaunch Raises $35 Million for the First Kinetic Launch System". Pulse 2.0. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  5. ^ Malik, Tariq (19 June 2019). "Secretive Startup SpinLaunch Gets 1st Launch Contract for US Military". Space.com. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  6. ^ Wall, Mike (16 January 2020). "Stealth Space Startup SpinLaunch Snares Another $35 Million From Investors". Space.com. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  7. ^ "World's Best Employers in the Space Industry". Everything Space. Retrieved 13 November 2021.
  8. ^ Constine, Josh (22 February 2018). "Stealth space catapult startup SpinLaunch is raising $30M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 February 2018.
  9. ^ Oberhaus, Daniel (29 January 2020). "Inside SpinLaunch, the Space Industry's Best Kept Secret". Wired. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
  10. ^ Sheetz, Michael (9 November 2021). "Alternative rocket builder SpinLaunch completes first test flight". CNBC. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  11. ^ @SpinLaunch (9 November 2021). "Scott, good eye. However, "Flight #1" was a successful horizontal flight. (the entire vacuum chamber assembly can rotate to a variety of launch elevations for testing & range flexibility)" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  12. ^ "SpinLaunch conducts first test of suborbital accelerator at Spaceport America". SpaceNews. 10 November 2021. Retrieved 11 November 2021.

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