Matthew Nelson
SpinLaunch has secured a contract from the Department of Defense through the Defense Innovation Unit to develop a kinetic energy-based launch platform intended to deliver orbital launch services for small satellite companies at low costs.
The company said Wednesday that it anticipates to conduct kinetic energy flight tests in 2020 and has unveiled plans to carry out the initial launch by 2022.
“There is a promising market surge in the demand for [low-Earth orbit] constellations of inexpensive small satellites for disaster monitoring, weather, reconnaissance, communications and other services,†said Jonathan Yaney, CEO at SpinLaunch.
Founded in 2014, SpinLaunch aims to build a mass acceleration system through the use of wind turbine, coal and mining technologies.
