[HN Gopher] An Italian Company Builds the First Known Propellant...
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An Italian Company Builds the First Known Propellantless Space-
Propulsion System
Author : maremmano
Score : 47 points
Date : 2025-11-14 19:43 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.satcom.digital)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.satcom.digital)
| a-priori wrote:
| They say it works "by directly converting electrical energy into
| thrust through controlled electromagnetic impulses", so I assume
| it's reacting against the Earth's magnetic field using the
| Lorentz force?
| nickff wrote:
| I suspect that you're right, but I believe that I heard
| something about a similar 'drive' being used on some sort of
| telescope satellite in the past (though I can't remember the
| specifics).
| drillsteps5 wrote:
| That would be "using Earth's magnetic field to create
| propulsion" and obviously would not work in deep space.
| a-priori wrote:
| Yes but they also don't seem to claim it does. The use cases
| they talk about are orbital station-keeping and de-orbiting
| of satellites. So that implies near-Earth use.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Their patents don't say anything about an external magnetic
| field, so _at best_ they 've accidentally rediscovered it
| through experimental error and don't know it yet.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45931224
| mlyle wrote:
| Not possible under standard physics.
|
| I mean, there are propellant-free ways to change trajectory--
| gravitational assists, aerobraking, solar sails, etc.
|
| You can even boost with something like an electrodynamic tether
| in theory (a magnetic field gradient lets you apply a net force).
| But field gradients out at LEO are low, and I don't think that's
| what's being claimed.
| frankfrank13 wrote:
| As a layman I have no idea which part of this to be skeptical of,
| but, cool!
| drillsteps5 wrote:
| The part where it violates basic laws of physics, like
| conservation of momentum, for one.
| snow_mac wrote:
| This is amazing. I wonder how it works. I would be cool if they
| published it.
| phpnode wrote:
| is this EmDrive v2.0? [0]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive
| augusto-moura wrote:
| Thought of it as soon as I read it
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > _" Genergo's system generates thrust without using any
| propellant and without expelling reaction mass, by directly
| converting electrical energy into thrust through controlled
| electromagnetic impulses."_
|
| Anyone have a clue how this might work?
| buildbot wrote:
| Generating matter somehow via E/c^2=m?
|
| (I don't think you can do this but I'm not a physicist...)
| philipkglass wrote:
| Known physics allows for it:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production
|
| If you have a source of energy on the spacecraft, like a
| solar panel, you could theoretically convert some of that
| energy to particle pairs with mass. But this is such an
| inefficient process (and so inherently low-mass with any
| practical energy source) that I doubt the claimed thruster
| could work this way.
| jfengel wrote:
| You don't need to go that far. Light has momentum, and you
| can use that directly. It has the maximum possible specific
| impulse.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon_rocket
|
| However, it requires a lot of energy and we are nowhere near
| a practical model. It's also not "propellant-less"; the
| photons are the propellant.
| verzali wrote:
| Maybe its possible to generate motion using the Earth's
| magnetic field under the right circumstances, though I'm not
| sure if that's really feasible. Or they might be able to create
| a very small thrust by emitting photons, but that must be very
| very small if its actually the case.
| kbelder wrote:
| It's amusing to me that I hear "Italians build propellantless
| space propulsion system", and my first reaction is " _Italians_?
| No way. "
| Jabrov wrote:
| Yes casual racism is very amusing
| maremmano wrote:
| And anyway, we Italians have done some good things in the
| past. Not that this can't be a new EmDrive.
| verzali wrote:
| Alessandro Volta was from Como, the same place as this. He
| invented the electric battery.
| wat10000 wrote:
| 1. No info given about how this system works.
|
| 2. No info about how it supposedly produces thrust.
|
| 3. No numbers given except for number of hours tested in orbit.
| No thrust or power consumption figures.
|
| 4. Violates pretty widely accepted law of physics.
|
| Yeah, I'm ever so slightly skeptical.
| maremmano wrote:
| It so happens that a friend of a friend of mine works at this
| company. I'll ask for some details.
| hbrav wrote:
| This article is quite frustrating, since all that it really tells
| me is that their system "generates thrust without using any
| propellant and without expelling reaction mass, by directly
| converting electrical energy into thrust through controlled
| electromagnetic impulses".
|
| That's rather non-specific. My first thought was that they're
| using photon momentum, but thinking about that a little harder
| rules it out. The ratio of energy to momentum doesn't change with
| any properties of the photon (they're both proportional to
| frequency) so there's nothing to really develop there: so long as
| you waste very little power as heat, you might as well be shining
| a well-collimated flashlight.
|
| Options 3 and 4 from [this
| paper](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.21743), _magnetic sails_ and
| _solar sails_, seem more promising. Is that what Genergo are
| doing? I have no idea. The article doesn't tell me.
| fudged71 wrote:
| Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence
| drillsteps5 wrote:
| I remember in the 80s, after mostly having given up on perpetuuum
| mobile, bunch of people were trying to invent something like
| this, using vibration etc which worked on Earth but would not in
| a vacuum... Looks like a new generation took the baton. Like this
| guy:
|
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a65924333/eng...
|
| An Engineer Says He's Found a Way to Overcome Earth's Gravity
|
| This new propulsion system could rewrite the rules of spaceflight
| --not to mention completely defy conventional physics.
|
| "In 2001, British Electrical Engineer Roger Shawyer first
| introduced the "impossible drive," known as the EmDrive. It was
| called "impossible" because its creator purported that the drive
| was reactionless, meaning no propellant required--in other words,
| it defied the known laws of physics (specifically, the
| conservation of momentum)."
| Terr_ wrote:
| My money's on fake woo-woo.
|
| At first--like many others here--I thought it might just be a
| terribly-written explanation for a device that uses Earth's
| magnetic field, so that the planet itself is the "reaction mass"
| being pushed around... but I'm not seeing that in a quick patent
| search for the company.
|
| Instead, there's a bunch of stuff that seems like perpetual-
| motion-machine crankery, where their "motor" depends on a
| oscillating some mass back and forth inside a chamber using
| special frequencies and "waveforms", which _somehow_ imparts some
| acceleration which they explain as "generating mass."
|
| Perhaps _did_ use Earth 's magnetic field through pure
| experimental error, and they either haven't realized it or think
| they can bilk investors by presenting it as something new.
|
| _________
|
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US11462985B2/en :
|
| > The inertial mass of an object varies with the variation of its
| magnetic field and therefore a variation of inertia can be
| created which leads to the generation of mass by varying the
| magnetization of the motor and its constituent elements (at given
| times, as explained above).
|
| > [...] the variation of "mass" is generated by the
| overmagnetization or undermagnetization of the motor itself in
| conjunction with given "shocks" or interactions between the
| magnetic piston and the two buffer magnets [...]
|
| https://patents.justia.com/patent/11462985 :
|
| > [In] general the motor or the moving system according to the
| present invention consists of an electromagnetically charged body
| which moves within a delimited volume of space being accelerated
| and decelerated electromagnetically in controlled manner during
| its movement within said volume of space.
|
| > Such accelerations/decelerations generate a force on the volume
| inside which the mass moves and allow the volume of space to
| move.
| verzali wrote:
| I think you are right. Either they have accidentally used the
| Earth's field somehow, or they are mistaking other effects
| (drag, perturbations...) for a thrust.
| Sanzig wrote:
| I am _highly_ skeptical. A reactionless thruster is the holy
| grail of propulsion systems, but there are no known physics which
| permit it to work. A photon rocket would allow momentum exchange
| without mass consumption, but a quick look at the math shows it
| would be infeasible (hundreds of megawatts per newton).
|
| My guess is this works at all, it is inadvertently expelling
| reaction mass somehow, such as ablating off small amounts of
| volatiles from polymer parts (like an inefficient version of a
| pulsed plasma thruster).
|
| I'd love to be wrong, but this very much falls into the
| "extraordinary claims" category for me.
| beloch wrote:
| Satellites once used propellant for attitude control. When the
| propellant was used up, the satellite lost the ability to
| maintain or change orientation. Very much as this article
| describes, control moment gyroscopes took over because they
| didn't require propellant. They operate on the same principles
| that let a cat land on it's feet by twisting about as it falls.
|
| However, there's a key difference between attitude control and
| movement. Changing your orientation doesn't involve changes in
| net kinetic energy, momentum, etc.. Changing speed (i.e. What a
| propulsion system does) does involve changes in these quantities,
| so Newtonian conservation laws come into play.
|
| >"Genergo's system generates thrust without using any propellant
| and without expelling reaction mass, by directly converting
| electrical energy into thrust through controlled electromagnetic
| impulses."
|
| If this isn't hogwash, it might be something similar to an ion
| engine. i.e. It _does_ operate by expelling propellant, but what
| it uses as propellant is background dust and ions, accelerated to
| a high velocity by electric fields and expelled.
|
| If, as the site claims, this technology is currently working and
| produces non-negligible thrust, it could be very useful. They
| need to be very clear about what this is though, since vague and
| unscientific sounding claims will not attract clients.
| Retric wrote:
| Article is light on details but there's a few options such as
| using sunlight or earths magnetic field to move around without
| propellent tanks near earth.
| hinkley wrote:
| Am I correct in thinking that in some cases gyroscopic
| orientation results in turning 270deg the "wrong way" to cancel
| out net gyroscope speed due to friction losses?
| visviva wrote:
| Impossible claim with no evidence offered - curious why this is
| on the front page.
| colechristensen wrote:
| This is very likely either nonsense or something very mundane
| explained poorly.
|
| Reactionless drives are probably impossible and inventing them
| would be an earthshattering breakthrough.
|
| Drives "powered" by photon reactions are possible but to get a
| meaningful amount of thrust you have to produce just an absurd
| amount of light. (using one in orbit would be a weapon of mass
| destruction, brighter than the sun, etc)
|
| Otherwise, I don't know, maybe this is something mundane with a
| little bit of thrust interacting with sparse upper atmosphere gas
| or something.
| cjameskeller wrote:
| Link to relevant patent:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US11462985B2/en
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(page generated 2025-11-14 23:00 UTC)