Ivo Quantum Drive in Orbit Tests Will Start After Establishing a Baseline

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Launch and early orbit phase of Barry-1 is going very slowly, but it is progressing. Rogue Space Systems Corporation’s is working toward preparations for the Quantum Drive’s first test. No exact date yet. Rogue Space Systems and IVO are working closely together to collect a solid baseline of orbital data before firing up the Drives for the first time. This will help substantiate the thrust results of the Quantum Drives.

Rogue’s spacecraft, named Barry-1, will test the company’s on-board computing software and its ability to aggregate data from multiple sensors and process that data in real time, Rogue Space said. During the Barry-1 deployment, Rogue will test internal and customer-developed algorithms as it collects data on various aspects of spaceflight. It also will test customer payloads from the propulsion startup IVO. The company is developing so-called IVO Quantum Drive electric propulsion technology for low-Earth orbit spacecraft. The Quantum Drive is based on the Quantized Inertia theory.

Quantized Inertia (QI) is a theory of inertia first proposed in 2007 by physicist Mike McCulloch, from the University of Plymouth. The phenomenon of inertia is defined in Newton’s First Law: “Objects move in straight lines at constant speed unless pushed on” but it has never been explained. Quantised inertia explains inertia, for the first time, by combining relativity and quantum mechanics.

According to relativity, an accelerating object will see a Rindler horizon in the direction opposite to that of its acceleration vector. This is because information travels at the speed of light.

Quantized Inertia further predicts that for objects with very low accelerations, such as stars at the edges of galaxies, the Rindler horizon moves so far back that it is close to the cosmic horizon so the waves of Unruh radiation are now damped equally all around, and the mechanism of inertia collapses. This explains why stars at the edge of galaxies can orbit faster than expected but still remain bound to the galaxy. As a result, Quantised Inertia predicts galaxy rotation perfectly without the need for dark matter or any adjustment.

More practically, quantized inertia also predicts that we can get thrust and energy from the vacuum.

An accelerating object will see itself surrounded by so-called Unruh radiation. The horizon splits virtual particles, so that they become real radiation.
Quantized Inertia combines these two predictions by saying that the horizon damps (reduces) the Unruh radiation on one side of the object. The resulting gradient in the quantum vacuum pushes the object back against it acceleration, explaining inertia

They received patent for a capacitor used in the wireless transmission of power, a primary market for IVO’s commercial endeavor that includes the CBAT wireless transmission system currently undergoing strict FCC safety testing for certification, Mansell realized that his facilities were well equipped to do the initial prototyping of drives built using McCulloch’s theories.

Once the drives are turned on, they will either successfully change the orbit of the Barry-1 satellite, rewriting the physics textbooks, or they will fail.

“Our goal is to raise the orbit,” said Mansell. “We would like to do several demonstrations. We’re going to do several orbits of just no thrust whatsoever to get a baseline set of data so we know what the background noise is. And then we’ll turn on the thrusters, the Quantum Drives, and raise the orbit. Then, the goal is to lower the orbit and be able to do this predictably, back and forth, and see if we can change the inclination of the orbit. That would be fantastic.”

McCulloch notes that Newton’s First Law defines inertia with the observation that Objects move in straight lines at constant speed unless pushed on. McCulloch further notes that although Newton defines inertia in these simple terms, the 17th-century genius never quite explains what precisely inertia is.

To explain the true nature of inertia, McCulloch developed his Quantized Inertia (QI) theory, which looks to the strange and mysterious properties of the quantum world for answers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his efforts to explain inertia have led to wide-ranging criticisms since his proposal seems to defy the laws of motion first set down so many centuries ago, laws that have proven highly reliable for rocket scientists and engineers alike.

Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics – Accelerated electron thermometer: observation of 1D Planck radiation

This report on the observation of thermal photons from an accelerated electron via examination of radiative beta decay of free neutrons measured by the RDK II collaboration. The emitted photon spectrum is shown to corroborate a thermal distribution consistent with the dynamical Casimir effect. Supported by a robust chi-squared statistic, we find the photons reside in a one-dimensional Planck spectrum with a temperature predicted by the moving mirror model.

“Whether or not the Quantum Drives produce the expected thrust, IVO will have shown again that we are capable of not only trying hard experiments, we can do them efficiently and in record time,” said Mansell, noting that his company was ready to go back in June before a glitch with something else on the satellite caused that flight to be canceled.

“In fact,” he added, “we were able to produce the final flight versions of the Quantum Drives in two months!”

18 thoughts on “Ivo Quantum Drive in Orbit Tests Will Start After Establishing a Baseline”

  1. Barry-1 LEOP checkout supposedly isn’t finished yet, so they haven’t even started the commissioning checks for the IVO drive yet. Barry-1 taking so long implies there may be problems in the host satellite, which may impair the testing (insufficient power or temperature control, etc)

  3. In general I approve of anybody who tries to exploit the weirdness of Quantum mechanics to do something. The Universe gave us hax we should exploit.

  4. Doesn’t this sound like the EmDrive (or whatever it was called), which relied on some stretch of the Machs Principle to derive motive force from mechanically compressed (piezoelectric) capacitors in a strong magnetic field? I wrote quite a bit of rather pessimisic evaluation of this a few years back. Here.

    The above ‘write up’ I guess was their marketing glib-sheet. Sure sounds self congratulatory. Built in Record Time, yah! All we need are a few more millions of venture capital to make the breakthrough happen and Wow the World.

    Without invoking Unruh radiation, or the Cosmic background, or the discrepency of galactic star speed versus distance from center, without any of that, their actual experimental proposal is NOT CONTAINED in any relevant detail, above. Zero.

    And that, to me, no matter how big of a truckload of balloons, confetti, champagne corks and ruddy-faced politicians in tow, that to me sounds fishy.

    So. I hope their experiment goes well. We could definitly use some concrete to hold up this powderkeg of fanciful ideas.

    ⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
    ⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅

  6. You might be right, but you have to also consider politics. An experiment like that could be explained away as some systematic error, and the research shelved for decades depending upon how loud the competitive voices are. A clear and very practical demonstration to change orbiting satellites would need more careful scrutiny and start to be used regardless of whether the theory is accurate or no.

  7. I don’t see why they’d need to do a test in orbit; A fused silica ballistic pendulum in vacuum is sensitive enough to measure the thrust from an LED. Does this ‘drive’ have to be in free fall to work?

    • Doing the test in orbit accomplishes a few things. First, it addresses the Tajmar criticisms of the previous earth-bound tests of the EmDrive. Second, it generates publicity. Third, it is a demonstration of a commercial application – adjusting satellite orbits.

    • They’ve done all the testing they could in a laboratory and now they’re trying to see what it actually does in space.

      • I really doubt they’ve done all the best practice lab testing they could.

        As I said, a fused silica ballistic pendulum can easily measure the thrust of an LED. Yes I’ve never heard of one of these “drives” being tested on one.

    • Various tests in vacuum have shown thrust, now need to test in orbit to verify.

      Something about the photons/microwaves in emdrive being too weak, need to use electrons instead for stronger charge. something like that. Some good reading on his Quantized Inertia blog.

      • I have to admit that, as dubious as I am about the various “reactionless thrusters”, I’d be absolutely delighted if the thing proved to actually work, even badly. The new physics might be more important than the technology.

        I’ve just gotten jaded after one after another of these things conspicuously being tested under compromised conditions, instead of using state of the art half a century ago techniques. It looks horribly like people subconsciously avoiding disproving something they want to be true.

        • It’s unfortunate that nowadays people so want exciting breakthroughs that ideas cannot be tested properly. We’re seeing the same thing with LK99. Supporters claim it hasn’t been manufactured properly, but the authors have given no more guidance on how to do it right. A lot of bold claims which in theory can be easily proven, but the exact details are hidden to prevent transparent experimentation. Honestly I can’t think of one example where some scientific innovation marketed in this way turned out to be genuine.

    • Sure but inevitably people will want it tested in orbit. I for one am glad that they are testing it. I view a successful or failing test as a good step forward for science. Physics seems stuck in a local optima, maybe tests like these that attempt to link multiple domains can tunnel us out.

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