Quote of the Day
Deploying Quantum Drive into orbit in a Rogue satellite on SpaceX Transporter 9 is a milestone for the future of space propulsion.
…
Quantum Drive’s capability allows Rogue to produce new satellite vehicles with unlimited Delta V.
…
There are many things that have held back space exploration, one of them of course is power and propulsion.
…
IVO’s quantum drive eliminates this propulsion problem by eliminating the fuel. By taking away the fuel, then you have essentially unlimited thrust.
Richard Mansell
IVO chief executive
November 18, 2023
SpaceX launches ‘zero fuel’ engine into space
Interesting. I like living in the future.
This will be very cool… If it actually works.
Consider me a little bit skeptical.
Ah… unlimited amounts of very small thrust. As long as you can generate or collect power to turn into electricity, you can accelerate forever, very, very slowly.
Just what we need for station-keeping thrusters to keep satellites in geo-sync orbit, or to overcome the tiny atmospheric drag on satellites in lower orbits. It’s either that, or develop in-orbit fuel tenders to top up the juice, or do what we do now: when the satellite hits bingo fuel, you use the last bit to de-orbit and burn up.
This has been reported before, and the work appears to be entirely spurious. I spent a while reading up on it a year or three ago. It seemed that various reports differ not just in reported magnitude of the effect (by orders of magnitude, with higher values apparently associated with reporters being in communist countries), but even in the sign of the effect. Hard to take something serious when there isn’t consensus about whether it’s a pull or a push.