Subject: Re: ?'Acceleration without fuel' - revolutionary thruster aces first tests on orbit?
Lynn McGuire <
lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
?'Acceleration without fuel' - revolutionary thruster aces first tests
on orbit?
https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2026/07/acceleration-without-fuel-revolutionary.html
"News broke on Space.com this afternoon about successful tests of the
first of its kind thruster that uses˙superconducting magnets˙to move a satellite in space.
"Zenno Astronautics, a spin-off from the University of Auckland, has
flown its new "Supertorquer" system on the Mira satellite built by California-based start-up Impulse Space. The tests began shortly after Mira's launch in November last year aboard the SpaceX Transporter 12
mission and saw the shoebox-size device perform with flying colors,
Zenno Astronautics CEO and founder Max Arshavsky, told Space.com."
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-to-launch-131-satellites-on-transporter-12-rideshare-mission-today
?Superconducting magnetics can convert solar energy input directly into momentum in space, by interacting with the Earth's magnetic field, so
the solar energy input takes the place of liquid fuels carried for
onboard thrusters. The problem with this approach has been that the
hardware to do it was too big, complex, and heavy to fit on a satellite.?
Huh.
The idea to use magnetic fields pushing against the earth magnetic field
as station keeping or attitude control thrusters for satellites in earth
orbit has been around for a while, but the trick so far has been to
actually build hardware that fits into a satellite (and powering it)
So points for actually making it work - nice proof of concept.
Even the Space.com[0] article linked from the blog is pretty short on
details, but it seems that this one would work for attitude control. That
alone could be a decent market for them: Current attitude control systems either use (cold) gas thrusters (old school) or reaction wheels (gyros,
the new approach for quite some time), but both have problems: thrusters
run out of gas and reaction wheels, being high load mechanical systems,
tend to fail.
This system with superconducting magnets has no moving parts for the
actual working system - so no wear issues. There is still the matter
of the heat pump to cool the cryo part which is likely mechanic (Peltier coolers tend to be hilariously inefficient). Plus, strong magnetic
fields and electronics (usually the reason for the satellite being there
in the first place) are not always friends.
If they can make it work for station keeping, that would be even better
as running out of fuel for the station keeping thrusters is one of the
life span limiting factors for orbital hardware.
We'll see and I wish them success.
Kind regards,
Alex.
[0]
https://www.space.com/technology/acceleration-without-fuel-revolutionary-superconducting-thruster-harnesses-earths-magnetic-field-in-1st-orbital-test
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