In March 2025 SpaceX launched a Rogue Space Systems cubesat with an IVO Ltd Quantum (QI) Drive on it. Up till Christmas I was monitoring its trajectory, almost every day and it did seem to push up by about a few metres when it seemed from personal communications that they had turned it on, but analyses like this are very subjective.
Unfortunately, as you may know, there was a engineering glitch so the thruster could not be turned on for more than a minute before problems arose, so the hoped-for orbit raise of kilometers did not come to pass. Which leaves us in a less than ideal position. Can we see if there is QI thrust? We probably cannot do this for certain, but I collected a lot of data from SatNOGS DB (nearly every day for several months) so it makes sense to see what we can get from it.
They always say "Don't compare yourself with others," but in science that is a valid method. One thing we can do is to use a control: a similar satellite without a QI drive. The IVO Sat (Norad ID = 63235) had a close twin brother (Norad ID = 63220) which was the same shape and mass and was launched by the same Falcon 9 rocket into about the same orbit. So, we can look at their fall over the last three months and see if the IVO Sat fell less than the control satellite. IVOsat fell from 506.3 km on 30/9/25 to 501.42 km on 30/12/25, a fall of 4880 metres. The other satellite fell from 504.98 km to 499.5 km so a fall of 5480 metres. Therefore the IVOsat fell 600 metres less over three months. Does that mean the QI Drive thrust it up by 600 meters over that time? Possibly. Is that the rise we expect give the thrusting they did?
The thrust generated by the QI quantum drive was expected to be 1.75 mN and the mass of the satellite is 20 kg which means that the along track acceleration (a) will be
a = F/mass = 0.00175/20 = 8.75x10^-5 m/s^2
Since I happen to know that the typical burn time was about a minute, and if we assume it was fired once every other day, a reasonable guess, then the change in speed per day (dv) is
dv = 8.75x10^-5 x 60 /2 = 0.002625 m/s
The change in height (dH) is
dH = 2.dv.sqrt(r^3/GM) = 5 metres per day
The observed rise (compared to its twin) was 600 metres in 90 days, which is 6.6 metres per day. Therefore the IVOsat moved up relative to its twin satellite by about the height you might expect if the Quantum Drive was being fired every other day for one minute on average. It looks plausible, but it could be that the drive was generating a Lorentz force and pushing off the Earth's magnetic field. My calculation of the Lorentz force suggests it's too small but I do not have detailed knowledge of the circuitry in the drive. We had hoped to have thrust large enough to avoid ambiguities like this but that has not been the case.
If this QI Quantum Drive was indeed thrusting then it means a radical change to the entire satellite industry because we can now have onboard thrusters that are silent and do not need to carry heavy fuel so they will last much longer, but we are not in a position to say that yet. Anyway, a big thank you to IVO Ltd, Rogue Space Systems and SpaceX who got the test up there (an amazing feat in itself) and have produced some results. I hope they will soon make a more detailed press release on it.
4 comments:
Space tests are bound to be questionable for tiny amounts of thrust. It seems to me that a much cheaper, simpler and quicker path is lab tests generating continuous rotation in a vacuum chamber that builds up.
A number of years ago I did tests on the "Lifter" force. By testing it in air versus a high vacuum <10^-6 Torr. After some time I was able to convinced myself that the force was almost certainly due to the ion wind (that can be easily felt behind a Lifter in air).
It was by no means easy to be certain that all effects from the vacuum apparatus were eliminated. I believe the tests by NASA on the EMdrive showed the same type of result clouding issues. When very small forces are involved, the fact that you cannot guarantee that all sources of external factors have been removed, makes the results insufficient to overcome the critics.
If a spacecraft shows a clearly measurable boost in its orbit that corresponds to activation of a device that emits no reaction mass that is not experienced by a similar nearby spacecraft without the device, then you have unequivocal results of a thrust force. There is no question about the results. Even if it turns out that the results are not from the physical phenomena you are testing (anomalous effects), you still have a device that creates a useful level of thrust without emitting any reaction mass. This would be a significant achievement, regardless of the physics. It would have more than sufficient potential benefit to generate enormous funding to investigate the phenomena.
The answer to that is to make forces big enough to make real accelerations that build to substantial rotational speeds and correlate the accelerations with the driving force. A few tens of millinewtons should be enough. If one can’t make forces big enough to do that there is no logical reason to try and test it in space in my view.
Had we been lucky enough that the development resources of our civilization were directed by the principles of logic and the Scientific Method, then the argument that a laboratory demonstration should upon unbiased examination be sufficient for funding and/or acceptance. Alas, that is not the case for the world in which we live.
When any new concept, especially one that challenges the current beliefs is proposed, it is seen as a threat by those who are in control. Decisions are very often made more due to loss of authority and power, than by any other consideration. If you do not believe this look at the lessons of history: Anaxagoras; Socrates; Hypatia of Alexandria; Galileo Galilei; Gregor Mendel; Georgii Karpechenko; Ludwig Boltzmann; Albert Einstein; Dr. Barry Marshal; and many, many others. The consequences for challenging the established order in science and medicine for all was severe, and in some cases fatal. Power does not like being challenged. If you doubt that statement, look at the obstacles that have been placed in front of Mike for refusing to "kiss the ring".
I know of only two drivers with sufficient magnitude to force acceptance of challenges to “accepted science” in a relatively short period of time: 1) Immense Financial Benefit 2) Survival of the Society (such as in times of war or pestilence). Interesting scientific principles generally prevail but take decades to centuries to occur.
Based upon history it will likely take much more than a laboratory demonstration to overcome the bias of the entrenched beliefs in the case of reactionless thrust. There is a big difference in the societal reaction between two announcements: one being "SCIENTISTS MEASURE NEW THRUST IN LABORATORY"; versus "BREAKTHROUGH PROPULSION FOR SPACECRAFT BOOSTS SATELLITE IN ORBIT". The first announcement is interesting science. The second announcement has the potential for immense potential wealth creation. Like it or not, increasing scientific understanding like all other progress in our society is driven by funding (i.e. it takes money).
In a related note: Roger Shawyer, the inventor of Emdrive, passed away November 27, 2025. Here is a short video of a very clear laboratory demonstration that he recorded and published 20 years ago, in 2006.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFa90WBNGJU
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