Acceleration without fuel: superconducting thruster uses Earth's magnetic field

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• Hacker News
• Actual headline cut down to fit:

  'Acceleration without fuel:' Revolutionary superconducting thruster harnesses Earth's magnetic field in 1st orbital test

  by svggrfgovgf
• Oh, it's a magnetorquer.

  How mundane.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetorquer

  > In the future, Zenno Astronautics plans to launch larger systems that could enable spacecraft to dock in space or conduct close proximity operations using just the power of their solar-powered superconducting magnets. Arshavsky envisions powerful magnets that could, in the future, propel spacecraft on missions to the moon and Mars using only solar power.

  Not unless they're also working on something completely different, like an M2P2.

  Still, their website does list "electromagnetic launch" as "in development", so there's hope of something more revolutionary and less evolutionary on the horizon.

  (I'd be a lot less skeptical of their market value if SpaceX were openly experimenting with half the random cheap propulsion and ISRU ideas I've seen, like M2P2, instead of opining about data centres).

  by ben_w