Richard Mansell, CEO of IVO Ltd, has announced that the Quantum Drive testing has started its initial calibration and assessment phase. All is good so far and they are excited to see the results of the upcoming tests.
He said – No timeline will be made public and they will not be issuing intermediate findings. Sorry, but they will wait until they have conclusive findings either in the positive or negative.
Nextbigfuture got a DM message from Richard. IVO is currently running assessment tests to confirm that all parts are working and to check characteristics of the Drive in the LEO environment. They need to see how the voltage, current etc. values compare to their terrestrial test results before they start duration burns.
Nextbigfuture notes that definitive movement can be observed from the NORAD radar tracking of the satellite. It would be a very marginal result where the movement is or is not conclusive. The testing timeline is not published and won’t be public. In fact IVO will make very few public announcements. Last time they never even got to do the calibration tests.
The current semi-major axis is 510.2 kilometers.
If the orbital decay continues without changes then we could expect
From August 9 to August 31 (22 days): SMA drop ≈ 22 * 0.05 km = 1.1 km. [~509 kilometers]
From August 31 to September 30 (30 days): SMA drop ≈ 30 * 0.05 km = 1.5 km [~507.5 kilometers]
The @ivo_ltd Quantum Drive testing has started its initial calibration and assessment phase. All is good so far and we are excited to see the results of the upcoming tests!
— Richard Mansell (@RaMansell) August 8, 2025
This is the nextbigfuture assessment of what would be significant and pretty conclusive.
If the SMA held or went back to 510.0 or more kilometers over the next 4-9 weeks this would be pretty significant.
If the SMA decline was stopped and altitude was gained 511 kilometers or more this would be very significant.
If the SMA decline was stopped and altitude was gained to over 515 kilometers or more this would huge.
If the SMA decline was stopped and altitude was gained to over 550 kilometers kilometers or more this would all but assure something commercializable.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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From some of Mansells comments, it seemed like they want to rise and dip in altitude to simulate satelltie burns, not sure why they would go that route. Maybe the device or test wasnt designed for prologned running but quicker bursts just to see if it can maintain its relative altitude, not sure how that effects NBF’s assessment of a good/great/bad test.
Just a note, SMA = semi major axis (not angle). Its essentially the average altitude of the satellite.
IVO has been claiming between .25 -.50 millinewtons of thrust out of this device 1 Watt of power. A cubesat of this size (standard design) is 12- 16 kg. F=ma and a bit of math shows will show you the amount of acceleration this could produce. Then velocity = acceleration x time, and you can calculate how much this could speed up or slow down the satellite. Its not small
Let’s all try to remember that the “laws” of physics are simply well established theories. Those that seem to be ’tilting at windmills’ such as the long established theories in physics are courageous for putting forth their time and money to attempt such – none should put down such efforts.
We can never break physics itself with any experiment – only our understanding of physics, and such shifts are to the benefit of all – but it takes risk & great effort. For humanity to move forward we must embrace all such risk taking.