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?
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.
> "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."
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.
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:
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)."
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.
> 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 [...]
> [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.
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.
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.
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.
Not possible according to the laws of physics. The closest you can get is a solar sail, but that's not "propellant-less" - photons are the propellant.
If a company thinks they've broken one of the most fundamental laws of physics (momentum transfer), they need to provide some serious evidence, and publish in full so their results can be replicated. A press release on an obscure website isn't how you do it.
The JPL had a project called M2P2 that explored using magnetic field lines and plasma to create a solar sail out of ionized gas. The idea being that it can be regenerated in the face of micrometeoroids and other space debris.
Tethers.inc wanted to, among other things, used cables as a drag line to either lower satellites in orbit by absorbing electrical flux from passing through the magnetosphere, or pulse the cable to push against it to raise the orbit.
"Scientifically tested!" is the marketing term for "The tests showed it didn't work, but we won't mention that second part!"
E.g.:
"successfully flight-tested" -- didn't break or leak anything when launched into space. A brick also has these properties.
"validated across three space missions" -- a brick could be flown multiple times too, this proves nothing except that this thing is space-rated.
"protected by a portfolio of granted international patents" -- we've got more lawyers than engineers!
"accumulated more than 700 hours of on-orbit operation" -- I could say the same thing about a brick left in orbit for a month.
"multiple on-orbit activation cycles have continued alongside data analysis and characterization activities" -- we kept turning it on and off in a futile attempt to work out why nothing was happening.
"confirmed system functionality in real space conditions" -- It definitely was "on", drawing power and everything!
"several long-duration tests were conducted in which it was observed, objectively and repeatedly, that motor activation produced a measurable acceleration or deceleration of the host spacecraft." -- we got confused by atmospheric drag, IMU drift, vibrations, and other confounding factors and called the experiment a success despite a string of failures for short-duration tests.
Skimmed the patent. Its 99% a pedantic and exhaustive explanation of a linear motor. The only interesting thing they mention, is this:
The inertial mass of an object varies with the variation of its magnetic field and therefore a variation of inertia can be created
But they provide no explanation whatsoever for how a glorified linear motor is relativistically (or otherwise) affecting inertial mass. This could be operating under a novel application of ECE Theory, wherein they are using magnetism to affect gravity, but I doubt it. They would have claimed so.
It's easy to validate this claim, just link to its orbital tracking data.
I keep looking at the data for OPT-2[1] which is supposed to be a "quantum drive" from a IVO Ltd.[2] but haven't seen any significant orbital changes yet.
25 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 38.7 ms ] threadI 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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive
Anyone have a clue how this might work?
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.
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.
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)."
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.
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.
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.
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.
If a company thinks they've broken one of the most fundamental laws of physics (momentum transfer), they need to provide some serious evidence, and publish in full so their results can be replicated. A press release on an obscure website isn't how you do it.
Tethers.inc wanted to, among other things, used cables as a drag line to either lower satellites in orbit by absorbing electrical flux from passing through the magnetosphere, or pulse the cable to push against it to raise the orbit.
and before anybody only reads "spacetime curvature" and thinks the paper is talking about a warp drive, it is not.
Anyway, this Genergo thingy seems to be nonsense IMO, or they would have actually explained how it works.
E.g.:
"successfully flight-tested" -- didn't break or leak anything when launched into space. A brick also has these properties.
"validated across three space missions" -- a brick could be flown multiple times too, this proves nothing except that this thing is space-rated.
"protected by a portfolio of granted international patents" -- we've got more lawyers than engineers!
"accumulated more than 700 hours of on-orbit operation" -- I could say the same thing about a brick left in orbit for a month.
"multiple on-orbit activation cycles have continued alongside data analysis and characterization activities" -- we kept turning it on and off in a futile attempt to work out why nothing was happening.
"confirmed system functionality in real space conditions" -- It definitely was "on", drawing power and everything!
"several long-duration tests were conducted in which it was observed, objectively and repeatedly, that motor activation produced a measurable acceleration or deceleration of the host spacecraft." -- we got confused by atmospheric drag, IMU drift, vibrations, and other confounding factors and called the experiment a success despite a string of failures for short-duration tests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetorquer
The inertial mass of an object varies with the variation of its magnetic field and therefore a variation of inertia can be created
But they provide no explanation whatsoever for how a glorified linear motor is relativistically (or otherwise) affecting inertial mass. This could be operating under a novel application of ECE Theory, wherein they are using magnetism to affect gravity, but I doubt it. They would have claimed so.
I keep looking at the data for OPT-2[1] which is supposed to be a "quantum drive" from a IVO Ltd.[2] but haven't seen any significant orbital changes yet.
[1] https://celestrak.org/NORAD/elements/graph-orbit-data.php?CA...
[2] https://ivolimited.us/