US Patent Issued to Viridian Space on April 29 for "Turbomolecular air-scoop for satellite air-breathing electric propulsion" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,286,943, issued on April 29, was assigned to Viridian Space Corp. (El Segundo, Calif.).

"Turbomolecular air-scoop for satellite air-breathing electric propulsion" was invented by Matthew S. Feldman (Los Angeles) and Rostislav Spektor (Culver City, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In one embodiment, an air-scoop includes an air inlet that air molecules enter the air-scoop through at an orbital speed when the air-scoop is moving through an atmosphere at the orbital speed. The air-scoop also includes a rotor that is rotated by a motor at a rotational speed, and the rotor includes multiple rotatable blade stages. A first one of the rotat...