F242 on ballistic pendulum. The rigid pole passes through the prototype so it can be moved vertically.

Dear readers,

F242 thrust has been improved up to 2.56 grams! I would like to share with you the details of this achievement through a direct translation from the original article on ASPS website written by Laureti:

As I said before the violation of action/reaction principle implies a different inertia law. More precisely what does “different inertia law” mean to PNN? It means that when power supply is cut off the prototype slowly loses its acceleration. I don’t know yet the specific dissipation law but it depends by the contact with laboratory environment [1]: air, coaxial cables etc.

In other words the prototype remains tilted on ballistic pendulum even with null power supply! We could ask ourselves what happens if power supply is maintained? At the same input power experimentally (I repeat experimentally) the thrust increases and the measuring system goes out of scale! This is what I’ve measured on April 22nd 2016 by conveniently increasing thrust duration and by reducing input power at about 180 W.

The prototype has acquired an unknown type of mechanical energy in addition to the kinetic one. Practically I’ve obtained, after a thrust interval inferior to 4 minutes, approximately 2.56 mg of thrust with F242 abundantly surpassing the 190 mg thrust previously measured. Because the measurement procedure on the new ballistic pendulum is complex it will be redone and a detailed report will be published on Nova Astronautica [ASPS official periodical].

I don’t exactly know the mathematical increment law for PNN inertia but I hope it won’t be of exponential type (hardly controllable from a certain instant onward) as described on Calmagorod website [English here]

Now, if thrust increases there is also the dissipation with terrestrial environment [1] which I don’t know yet what equilibrium point it could have.

Naturally with the thrust increment under VHF power supply (> 100Mhz) the temperature increase prevents me to maintain the prototype thrust period above 4 minutes in order to avoid internal meltdowns (more than 200°C measured with thermal camera).

I believe that thermal increments are mostly due to the low efficiency of the materials I’m forced to use as I haven’t got specific knowledge and resources to build better ones.

Even if I haven’t got suitable building materials and the prototype lacks of any active/passive thermal control my measurement systems say that for the same energy delivered the system thrust increases.

How much can it reach? For the moment I don’t know.

I can’t show the whole structure of the ballistic pendulum because it isn’t patented.

[Laureti said that the structure architecture will be a gift to the investors who come to see the demonstration, because they can replicate it for testing other kinds of propellantless thrusters]

Thrust measurement system (a laser which detects the movement of an index covered by an aluminum rectangle) is located below, at the base of the ballistic pendulum. It must be kept as far as possible from electromagnetic field to avoid its destruction. Covered by adhesive tape is the “occhiale” [spyglass] which focus the laser beam on the index.

As personal speculation i add that both lateral sections of the prototype might house an array of thruster units (remember? In the previous article Laureti said he put together all units in F242)

However my concern, for future practical applications, is the thrust period limited to 4 minutes because it means that the thruster can easily burn out (like a light bulb) and leave an hypothetical spaceship adrift.. but this scenario would be probably years ahead and for the moment we can clearly see that this is “only” a DIY setup, so let’s focus on the incredible achievement reached by the thruster.

[1] I asked Laureti a clarification for this phrase. I’ll update the article when I’ll receive it.

UPDATE April 28 2016:

Apparently the prototype as long as it’s integral with Earth mass behaves according to Newtonian law of inertia. For this reason it is essential to isolate the whole block that contains the prototype (box, passing through staff, coaxial cables) by placing the system as far as possible from terrestrial environment: the lower the total mass of the prototype is in contact with it, the better. Within certain limits the ballistic pendulum invented by Laureti seems good at it, but its limits are still under testing.