Green Launch COO and Chief Science officer Dr John W Hunter said the launch system was a long tube, filled with hydrogen, mixed with helium and oxygen. Then a projectile was placed in front of him.
When this gas cannon is fired, the gas expands very quickly, and the projectile gets a huge boost from behind. Green Launch developed the Super High Altitude Research Project (SHARP) program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 30 years ago, known as the hydrogen impulse launcher.
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The SHARP program built and tested a 122-meter long impulse launcher in 1992 and launched payloads (including a hypersonic scramjet test engine) at speeds up to Mach 9 . This gas cannon launcher fires a small two-stage rocket to produce a final accelerating blast and direct it into the correct orbit.
Given that the hydrogen cannon launcher will fire very quickly, the rocket launched is small and light. “The record speed of a projectile launched with hydrogen propellant is 11.2 km/s (32.7 Mach),” said Green Launch Business Development Director Eric Robinson, quoted by SINDOnews from the newatlas page, Friday (15/4/2022).
Green Launch said the launch cost would be cheaper, perhaps a tenth of the cost of launching a rocket. A hydrogen cannon can be fired every 60-90 minutes and send a projectile at hypersonic speed through the atmosphere within a minute and release its shell. “Your satellite and supplies can be in orbit in 10 minutes,” said Robinson.
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Recently, Green Launch has proven the launch of the 16.5 meter tube concept before Christmas 2021 at Arizona’s Yuna Proving Grounds. The first vertical launch reached speeds of over Mach 3 and fired projectiles into the stratosphere.
Later this year, the team aims to increase the speed enough to bring the satellite across the Karman Line about 100km above Earth and into what’s called the beginning of space.
This rugged satellite, made of ready-to-use parts, was tested at 3,200 G, prepared using a good mechanical design and a bit of epoxy. Features include camera, GPS, communications, solar cells and battery power supply.
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