Green Launch COO and Chief Science officer Dr John W Hunter said the launch system is 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 the rear. 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 deliver a final accelerating blast and direct it into the correct orbit.
Considering the hydrogen cannon launcher will fire very fast, the rocket launched is small and light. “The record speed for a projectile launched with hydrogen propellant is 11.2 km/s (Mach 32.7),” said Green Launch Business Development Director Eric Robinson, quoted by SINDOnews from the newatlas page, Friday (15/4/2022).
Green Launch said the cost of launching 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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Most 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 in excess of Mach 3 and fired projectiles into the stratosphere.
Later this year, the team aims to increase the speed enough to get 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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