It is thrilling to know that the first spacecraft designed to test for thrust from quantised inertia (QI) is now up there. Designed and built by IVO Ltd, and launched on the 11th November aboard a SpaceX, Falcon 9 and sharing a cubesat belonging to Rogue Space Systems, it is now in a good low Earth orbit and IVO are monitoring it for a month to get statistics good enough to provide a baseline. At some point soon they will switch on the quantum drive and see if the orbit changes. If it does then the world will change with it. Very appropriately to the spirit of QI physics which has always been open to all, hence this blog, you can monitor the orbital data of the satellite (called Barry-1) for yourself here:
https://db.satnogs.org/satellite/QDDY-8878-5291-1819-3935#data
For more information you can see an article in The Debrief by Christopher Plain, with quotes from Richard Mansell, the CEO of IVO Ltd:
There's also a good article in Forbes by David Hambling, who has been following QI and related issues for a few years now, so he has a good grasp of it. It has quotes from Shawyer and myself:
Little did I know when I started scribbling on bits of paper back in 2006 (I was then a lowly scientist at the Met Office), that two years later I'd get an academic post and start this blog, six years later be invited to write a book, 11 years later get £1M in DARPA funds and 17 years later a US company would launch a test of QI into space! More will follow. It's been a thrilling ride, with a few temporary downs, but massive ups, including this launch. The pace is accelerating as well. My main hope is that I can continue to think calmly about fundamental physics as this all takes off!
23 comments:
Fingers crossed here: really hoping physics gets a shake-up.
DIE DARK MATTER, DIE! :)
Best of British Luck to you and IVO.
At a time when the evidence for the reality of UFOs is patent, the long-awaited emergence of the conceptual possibility for humanity to effectively leave its solar system and harness energy from vacuum information is more than welcome!
Are you less active on twitter these days? I miss checking in every now and then... At least I have this blog as a fallback :) best of luck mate, I really hope this works out for you (and us all)
Do you know when the QI drive is planned to be powered up?
So far the cubesat's orbit is slowly but steadily decaying, with no sign of powered flight.
they initially said after a month.
This is awesome! Can anyone give a hint as to how to interpret the orbital data?
Cheers
(I know this is unrelated too but inquiring minds might apply QI to molecular and nuclear quantum physics…)
Did I post here that Beryllium-10 was recently observed by Japanese physicists to have a nucleus that looks like a covalently bonded molecule?
The nuclear spin must play a role IMO.
It split into two He-4 nuclei with the other two neutrons rotating around the apparent bond axis of the to alpha particles.
So what does this mean for quark exchange and the oil drop model!?
Can anyone here interpret the data: before activation and after?
Where can we see the change in data/elevation?
To see the orbit of the IVO satellite Barry-1 which has the Quantum Drive on it,
1. Put “Heavens-Above” in your search engine and go to that website (doesn’t like VPNs)
2. Click on “Satellite database” under Satellites
3. Put “58338” in both boxes next to Satellite number range and hit enter
4. Click on the numbers under Orbit
After the page loads, scroll down and to see the Two-Line Elements (TLE) and a more readable set of orbit parameters.
The satellite was originally designated “2023-174C” but renamed “Barry-1”. Depending on what TLE database to look at, either name may be found but the number designation “58338” stays the same.
IMO, when the quantum drive is turned on, any thrust will become most evident in the apogee, perigee and eccentricity values. Other numbers will change too but the above numbers are easiest to understand. Of course, potential solar activity altering the upper atmospheric drag could confuse things.
Dear Mongo - that is the wrong satellite - you need to look at 58338!
There are various orbit-displaying free software packages available. I'm using SatGazer and Orbitrack on a MacBook Pro. The issue I'm having is that they don't agree on values (e.g. perigee and apogee). This may be due to what model each uses for the surface (shape) of the earth to determine altitude at any point in time. But for the experiment, it will be change in these values when the device is turned on, not their absolute value.
Dr. McCulloch, when will we know the device has been powered?
I'm seeing an interesting change in Barry-1's orbit but I'm not sure if it is real. I've noticed the eccentricity is falling--meaning the orbit is getting more circular. In just the last day I've seen it go from 0.0011632 to 0.0011562. However, I'm not seeing a corresponding change in the apogee and/or the perigee values. Heavens-Above and Orbitrack are still listing 525km and 509km respectively. I'm no expert in orbital mechanics but I wouldn't think that could happen. Making an orbit more circular either pushes the perigee higher or apogee lower or both--moving the orbit so the earth is closer to the center of that more circular orbit. Or am I thinking about this wrong? We have no idea if the Q-drive is being utilized yet but the sun has been active lately burping out a CME or two that hit the atmosphere so drag could be changing. I admit I haven't been monitoring the drag coefficient but that should also change apogee and perigee.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
@albi90,
Thank you for the information and link. That's good news. I have been plotting the gradually decreasing orbit of Barry-1 and hoping the experiment hadn't started yet :-). Personally, I'm hoping for a shakeup in Physics--but the hard data must show it.
I've figured it out!
To observe the altitude of BARRY-1 go to the following link: https://celestrak.org/NORAD/elements/graph-orbit-data.php?CATNR=58338
Look at the BLACK line labelled SMA. This shows the average altitude of BARRY-1 over time.
Currently the line shows a very gradual decrease in altitude from 518.9km on 2023-11-28 to 515.3km on 2024-01-03.
This is roughly an altitude decrease of 3.6km in 36 days, which is about 100m per day.
Once the Quantum Drives are activated I assume we should see the altitude start to go up, or at least not go down as quickly.
While we are waiting on IVO to turn on the Q-drive and see the effects in the orbital TLEs, I would like to propose a “Gedankenexperimente”. (Demons! They come in the dark of night…)
From our perspective, various astronomical measurements indicate the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. At some location out there, as the velocity of matter is getting closer to the speed of light, the energy required to continue acceleration goes towards infinity. This implies that, at this cosmic time/location, particles are prevented from accelerating more because of needing infinite energy and only drift on at a constant velocity—albeit at close to c. (This location is likely beyond what we can see of the universe—the Cosmic or Particle Horizon.) As a consequence of this, the Unruh radiation “bath” created by these particles should go away as their acceleration is suppressed—creating effectively a “shell” to our universe beyond which there is no acceleration and thus no Unruh thermal bath.
Question: Does this shell (Unruh Horizon?), in any way, have an effect on or relation to quantized inertia phenomena?
Or is this question nonsense because I don’t understand enough of the subject yet?
Thoughts?
Talk amongst yourselves.
Phlogiston.
“The more I read and learn, the better I understand just how much I don’t know.”
When will the results been in I am super curious for the outcome. This would be an amazig achievment.
According to Bard, when I asked about the SMA altitude drop:
A decrease in semi-major axis (SMA) from 518.9 km to 512.7 km within a few months indicates a considerable altitude drop of 6.2 km. This represents a decline of approximately 1.2% of the initial altitude.
For comparison, most small satellites in LEO experience altitude loss due to atmospheric drag, but the rate is typically much slower, in the range of tens to hundreds of meters per year.
I will be curious to learn if this was planned, perhaps part of the experiment, or whether this was an unanticipated problem. And of course I'm very curious to know whether the quantum drive has been turned on, and if not, then when? I'm surprised at the lack of communication/disclosure/updates when it is such a public test and such a big deal. Hope to hear official updates soon!
Kevin, my understanding is that they are allowing the satellite to offgas for a period of time - perhaps up to another ten weeks yet. This is in order to insure that there can be no other internal forces acting on the satellite before testing begins.
Hmm I can't think of any way that offgassing or any other phenomena could be responsible for a 60 mile raise in apogee say, that would be behavior that no propulsion-less cubesat has ever exhibited, unless they hid some solar sails onboard lol.
My guess is since Barry-1 is RSS' first ever cubesat they are checking it and the onboard software payloads thoroughly out and the QI drive riding along will have to wait its turn I just hope they don't wait too long, I'm so impatient!
Thanks Rex! I will just try to be patient and keep checking in from week to week. I guess I don't really need to watch https://celestrak.org/NORAD/elements/graph-orbit-data.php?CATNR=58338 looking for a positive change in SMR, since if it happens the news will probably be all over the place!!
Sadly, Barry-1 has had a bus failure, see https://rogue.space/suspension_of_barry1_operations/ .
IVO are looking for a next launch date, currently 2025 but they may get an earlier slot.
So sad they had power issues so never fired up the IVO drive, thanks Simon for the hopeful words, we all pray they can bring that date forward, but on the plus side I guess Rogue Space will have learnt a lot for the next one
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