Rocket Fitted With Camera Gets Launched Out Of A Centrifuge At 1,600km/h

Spaceflight tech developer SpinLaunch has released first-person footage of what it would look like to be launched up to space at 1,600 kilometres an hour. 

SpinLaunch is planning to launch small payloads into orbit using a centrifuge.

The vehicles are able to get about as high as a traditional first-stage rocket before a second-stage rocket can propel it further, however, the method is considerably more sustainably viable than a rocket. 

The concept requires no onboard fuel, reducing danger from explosions, while also being completely electrical.

Check out the video below, and just a bit of a warning, it could potentially give you some motion sickness.

The company website states: “The SpinLaunch Orbital Launch System is a fundamentally new way to reach space.

“The velocity boost provided by the accelerator’s electric drive results in a 4x reduction in the fuel required to reach orbit, a 10x reduction in cost, and the ability to launch multiple times per day.”

The centrifuge is officially being called the ‘suborbital mass accelerator’. The is the eighth major test of the device, however, it's the first to have a camera attached to it.

The video shows the projectile erupting from the mass accelerator to an altitude of 7,600 metres. 

The projectile’s rate of spin is reduced using angled fins, which help stabilise it and prevent it from tumbling.

David Wrenn, vice president of technology at SpinLaunch likens the result to a ‘bullet firing out of a gun.’ 

The method is a significant advancement in getting projectiles such as satellites up into space, however, would never be used for human spaceflight.

The G-loads of the launch vehicle reach up to 10,000Gs and humans can’t survive acceleration loads of 9G or more - so you’d be well and truly stuffed if you were launched by one of these.

So, this footage from SpinLaunch is as close as it gets to that feeling of being launched into space. 

Even more impressive is that this test is using only a scaled-down model of what it's actually capable of achieving.

The company plans on building a larger version of the accelerator which could launch objects in excess of 200kg at speeds of more than 8,000 kilometres an hour. 

However, this test proves that the camera itself can survive the intense G forces meaning SpinLaunch will be able to continue documenting their launches.