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An experimental quantum engine is missing and presumed lost in space, after the team lost communication with the satellite it was supposed to move.
Rogue Space Systems launched the Barry-1 satellite into orbit in November 2023, powered by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Unfortunately, the company’s first space mission did not go as planned.
“We had ongoing problems with the power system on the bus during LEOP (Launch and Early Orbit Phase),” the team explained in a update“and after two months of operations, towards the end of LEOP, we lost communication with the satellite.”
According to the team, contact was lost before they could test their controversial IVO unit, named after IVO Ltd, who developed it. The plan was to move the cubesat using the IVO thruster, demonstrating that it could provide thrust.
The thruster is touted as a “reactionless thruster,” a hypothetical device that generates thrust without propellant. Such a device would be revolutionary and would help us reach distant destinations in space faster and without large amounts of propellant.
There have been attempts to create such devices, and some, such as the EmDrive, claim to have produced a small amount of thrust. But such devices are highly controversial as they appear to contravene the law of conservation of momentum and every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Later teams trying to replicate the mysterious thrust created by EmDrive found that it could all be explained with normal physics and a thermal effect.
“With the help of a new measurement scale structure and different suspension points of the same engine, we were able to reproduce apparent thrust forces similar to those measured by the NASA team, but also make them disappear by means of a point suspension.” the team explained to the German website Grenz Wissenschaft-Aktuell.
“When power flows to the EmDrive, the motor heats up. This also causes the scale fixing elements to deform and the scale to move to a new zero point. We were able to avoid this with an improved structure. Our measurements refute all EmDrive claims by at least 3 orders of magnitude.”
IVO are with tight lips about how his own drive works, though say It can produce 52 milinewtons of thrust per 1 watt of electricity. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and with the IVO engine lost in space and the laws of physics still doing their thing, it seems unlikely we’ll get it anytime soon.
(H/T: Futurism)