A team of researchers from Escape Dynamics in Colorado have announced test results indicate microwaves might be able to launch space planes into space, which would allow for a single stage spacecraft. If this idea works, it would significantly reduce costs, because sending satellites and humans into orbit is typically very expensive.
“Today’s rockets are all based on the same idea; a multi-stage rocket is used, each part filled with propellant that pushes the rocket into space as the propellant is burned. It is a really expensive way to go because the propellant is extremely heavy. ED’s idea is to use microwaves beamed from the ground to heat hydrogen carried by the space-plane to push the craft into space, a much more efficient approach. They are reporting that testing done at their facility shows that the idea might be possible,” according to Phys.org.
During testing, the team built a thruster that operates on the ground and measured how much thrust was generated. “[They report] that they achieved a specific impulse of 500 seconds when using helium, and believe that when they switch to hydrogen that number will jump to 600 seconds — enough, they claim, to push a small craft into space.”
The way the microwaves would launch the aircraft would be by striking the heat shield on the bottom of an aircraft, and powering an electromagnetic motor that would heat hydrogen as it’s released from a tank. This would then be pushed through a nozzle, thus resulting in thrust. Once the aircraft was in orbit in space, a satellite would be deployed and then come back down to Earth. The microwave array theoretically would be powered by electricity produced on Earth.
