Ignoring air resistance (which you really shouldn’t, especially not when you’re talking in the thousands of meters per second), you need to launch something at around 1400m/s get it to 100km high “suborbital”. You need to launch it over 8000m/s to get it into orbit. In 2022, Spinlaunch were getting to ~450m/s, but that was two years ago and maybe they’ve improved.

Now, 1400m/s is in the neighborhood of a tank cannon, which is doable. But 8000m/s on the surface, or about 29.000 kph, is about mach 23. That’s like running smack into a brick wall of air, every millisecond. And in reality, you need MUCH more speed, because you’re shooting at a much shallower angle, so there’s a lot more air to get through.

So the article says they’ve done ten successful launches.

What does that actually mean? It’s real short on details.

They’ve successfully put ten payloads in orbit? Or what?

If you really believe that this will work anytime in the next decade, and that it doesn’t need a rocket to circularize the projectile’s orbit, I have a bridge to sell you.

They have been trying to find somewhere to build their next scale up for a few years now.

SpinLaunch’s approach seems closer to a sling than to a catapult or trebuchet.

Either way, it’s good that the article spends some space on the possible uses of satellites. Otherwise people could get the impression it’s all for fun, or something like that.