Space Is the Experiment: A Free-Flight Orbital Falsification Architecture for Claimed Propellantless Electrostatic Thrust

Space Is the Experiment:

A Free-Flight Orbital Falsification Architecture for Claimed Propellantless Electrostatic Thrust

DOI: To be assigned

John Swygert

August 15, 2026

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Abstract

Claims of propellantless electrostatic thrust present an unusual experimental problem. The weaker the reported force, the more elaborate the terrestrial apparatus required to establish that the force is real; yet every balance, suspension, vacuum chamber, grounded wall, electrical feedthrough, shield, support structure, thermal gradient, and nearby conductor also introduces possible pathways through which an apparent force may arise. Better controls are therefore indispensable, but controls do not make an experiment relationless. They change the relations that must be accounted for.

Recent public discussion by Charles Buhler and collaborators associated with Exodus Propulsion describes electrostatic-force experiments conducted across approximately two thousand test articles or experimental variations, including force balances, reversal tests, high-vacuum operation, shielding, pendulum and rotational configurations, and attempts to suppress ion wind and Coulomb interactions with nearby structures. The interview reports millinewton-scale force measurements in some configurations and explicitly discusses spacecraft applications. These statements are treated here as reported experimental claims requiring independent validation, not as established new physics. Buhler also makes clear that this privately pursued propulsion work is distinct from his NASA duties; NASA independently identifies him as lead scientist in the Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory at Kennedy Space Center's Swamp Works.

This paper proposes that a decisive next experimental boundary may be a free-flying spacecraft rather than an increasingly elaborate terrestrial force balance. The proposition is simple:

> When a claimed propulsion force is sufficiently large to produce measurable spacecraft acceleration, remove the terrestrial support architecture and let the motion of the complete spacecraft become the primary detector.

Space is not treated as perfect isolation. An orbiting spacecraft remains coupled to gravity, residual atmosphere, solar radiation, Earth radiation, plasma, spacecraft charging, geomagnetic fields, thermal radiation, outgassing, radio-frequency emission, attitude-control systems, and other environmental and operational processes. These relations must be measured and bounded. The advantage of space is therefore not the absence of boundaries, but the replacement of one experimental architecture with another in which the central observable is no longer the deflection of an apparatus relative to its laboratory. It is the change in motion of the entire apparatus.

A free-flight falsification architecture is developed using whole-spacecraft momentum accounting, matched active and sham states, reversed thrust geometry, charged-but-unpowered states, deliberate discharge, independent orbit and inertial receivers, environmental-vector discrimination, randomized command schedules, blinded analysis, prospective prediction locking, and explicit failure criteria. A stronger two-spacecraft crossover architecture is also proposed.

The central question is not initially whether electrogravity, vacuum structure, quantum phenomena, or deeper substrate coupling explains the reported effect. It is more fundamental:

Does the complete free-flying spacecraft acquire a repeatable, device-correlated change in momentum after known external forces have been measured and bounded?

If the answer is no, a broad class of propulsion interpretations is constrained. If the answer is yes, the experiment establishes the momentum-accounting problem that any deeper explanation must solve.

The spacecraft does not merely carry the experiment.

The spacecraft becomes the experiment.

Keywords: electrostatic propulsion; propellantless propulsion; free flight; orbital experiment; anomalous thrust; spacecraft acceleration; SmallSat; CubeSat; momentum conservation; experimental controls; boundary conditions; falsification; TSTOEAO

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1. Purpose

The scientific problem posed by anomalous-thrust experiments is often framed too quickly as a question about theory:

What force is this?

That is not yet the first question.

The first question is:

What physically moved?

The second is:

Relative to what?

The third is:

What complete momentum boundary was actually measured?

Only after those questions are answered does mechanism become scientifically meaningful.

A laboratory force measurement necessarily requires a receiver. That receiver may be a scale, torsion balance, pendulum, optical displacement sensor, rotary stand, flexure, suspension, or another calibrated apparatus. For ordinary forces this architecture is extremely successful.

For a purported propellantless force, however, the receiver creates a special difficulty because the central scientific claim concerns whether the experimental device exchanges momentum with something outside itself.

A force observed between the device and the apparatus does not by itself establish propulsion.

The complete experimental system must move.

That distinction motivates the present paper.

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2. Experimental Motivation

In the supplied interview transcript, Buhler describes efforts to distinguish the reported force from ion wind, Coulomb attraction, nearby grounded structures, chamber walls, and measurement-specific artifacts. He states that high-voltage devices can interact electrostatically with walls, floors, ceilings, and other nearby conductors and therefore emphasizes grounded shielding and enclosure.

Particularly important is his description of the vacuum-chamber problem. Moving a device into vacuum suppresses atmospheric pathways such as conventional ion wind, but the vacuum chamber introduces another large physical structure: the chamber wall. His proposed response is to enclose the test article and measure the motion or force of the complete enclosure, then reverse the apparatus to test whether the apparent force instead follows attraction toward a surrounding boundary.

This is experimentally significant because it embodies a more general principle:

\boxed{

\text{A control that removes one pathway can create or expose another.}

}

Vacuum is not nothing.

A Faraday cage is not nothing.

A balance is not nothing.

A spacecraft is not nothing.

The correct question is therefore never merely whether the experiment is “isolated.”

The correct question is:

> What relations remain capable of producing the measured observable?

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3. Claim Status

This paper does not claim that the Exodus experiments have established:

a fifth force;

electrogravity;

violation of Newton's third law;

violation of momentum conservation;

violation of energy conservation;

reactionless propulsion;

vacuum propulsion;

spacetime curvature;

quantum propulsion;

or TSTOEAO substrate coupling.

The supplied transcript reports multiple force-producing configurations and approximately two thousand experimental variations, but those statements remain claims whose evidentiary status depends upon independent examination, complete methods, calibrated uncertainty, replication, and publication.

The present paper instead proposes a test architecture capable of placing a much stronger constraint on the central physical question.

The conditional proposition is:

\boxed{

\text{If the complete spacecraft experiences a genuine external force, its center-of-mass motion must reveal it.}

}

That proposition does not depend upon knowing the force mechanism in advance.

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4. The Terrestrial Boundary Problem

Consider a device $D$.

A first experiment places it on a scale.

A force is reported.

A possible electrostatic interaction with the scale is identified.

The device is moved away from the scale or mechanically decoupled.

A pendulum is introduced.

Now suspension behavior enters.

The experiment is moved into vacuum.

Ion wind is reduced.

Now chamber-wall coupling must be considered.

A grounded Faraday enclosure is added.

External electric-field coupling is reduced.

Now induced charge, grounding paths, field leakage, cable forces, thermal effects, enclosure geometry, and remaining magnetic or mechanical pathways must be considered.

The apparatus evolves approximately as:

\rightarrow

D+B_1

\rightarrow

D+B_1+B_2

\rightarrow

D+B_1+B_2+R

\rightarrow\cdots

where:

$D$ is the device,

$B_i$ are successive control or boundary structures,

and $R$ is the receiver.

This is not an argument against terrestrial experiments.

It is an argument for recognizing when the experimental architecture itself has become part of the central uncertainty.

At that point, a more powerful control may be to change the boundary altogether.

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5. From Force Balance to Free Flight

A terrestrial balance asks:

F = ?

by measuring the reaction of an apparatus against its support environment.

A free-flying spacecraft asks:

a_{\mathrm{COM}} = ?

for the complete system.

The conceptual change is profound.

Instead of:

\text{device}

\rightarrow

\text{balance}

\rightarrow

\text{floor},

the architecture becomes:

\text{device}

\rightarrow

\text{spacecraft}

\rightarrow

\text{trajectory}.

The complete spacecraft is now the relevant inertial object.

For spacecraft mass $m$,

\mathbf F_{\mathrm{net}}

m\mathbf a_{\mathrm{COM}}.

Internal forces may redistribute mass or stress within the spacecraft.

They cannot, by themselves, provide persistent acceleration of the spacecraft's total center of mass.

That is precisely why free flight is scientifically attractive.

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6. Space Is Not Zero Gravity

The proposed experiment does not depend on saying that a satellite experiences “zero gravity.”

A spacecraft in low Earth orbit remains strongly affected by Earth's gravity. It is in continuous free fall.

This is an advantage.

The primary observable is not weight.

It is non-gravitational acceleration relative to the predicted orbit.

Let the measured spacecraft state be:

\mathbf x(t)

[\mathbf r(t),\mathbf v(t)].

Let the conventional dynamical model predict:

\hat{\mathbf x}_C(t).

An unmodeled acceleration can then be estimated from the trajectory and complementary inertial data.

Conceptually:

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{obs}}

\mathbf a_C.

The scientific task is to determine whether:

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}

correlates with the experimental device state more strongly than with conventional environmental or spacecraft variables.

---

7. Why Free Flight May Be More Discriminating

Buhler describes reported force levels reaching approximately 5–10 mN in some experimental configurations and discusses spacecraft applications directly.

The transcript also presents lower-force examples, including an approximately 1 mN scale demonstration and a vacuum-spinner demonstration interpreted there as approximately 2.5 mN.

These reported values are important because acceleration scales simply as:

a=\frac{F}{m}.

For illustration, not as a mission specification, suppose:

m=10\ \mathrm{kg}.

For:

F=1\ \mathrm{mN}=10^{-3}\ \mathrm N,

the corresponding acceleration is:

a=10^{-4}\ \mathrm{m\,s^{-2}}.

If maintained for:

t=1000\ \mathrm s,

then ideally:

\Delta v

0.1\ \mathrm{m\,s^{-1}}.

A tiny laboratory force therefore becomes an accumulating dynamical quantity.

Free flight turns time into experimental gain.

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8. Time as an Experimental Lever

For approximately constant acceleration over a sufficiently short local interval,

\Delta v\propto t,

and:

\Delta x\propto t^2.

The actual orbital experiment would of course require numerical orbit propagation rather than elementary straight-line kinematics.

The methodological point remains:

A balance attempts to resolve a force at one location.

A spacecraft permits that force, if real, to accumulate an increasingly observable trajectory consequence.

This can be more powerful than indefinitely improving a terrestrial force balance.

---

9. The Correct System Boundary

The experiment must define the physical system as:

\boxed{

\text{payload + power system + enclosure + spacecraft bus + all internal moving components}

}

not merely the electrostatic element.

The governing momentum question becomes:

\frac{d\mathbf P_{\mathrm{sc}}}{dt}

\mathbf F_{\mathrm{ext}},

where:

\mathbf P_{\mathrm{sc}}

is total spacecraft momentum.

If an electrostatic component pushes against another component inside the spacecraft, the internal forces cancel in the complete-system momentum account.

If a cable tugs on a support:

internal.

If one capacitor plate attracts another:

internal.

If a moving mechanism temporarily shifts the center of mass:

internal and reversible.

A sustained acceleration of the complete spacecraft, however, requires momentum exchange with something external to that closed mechanical boundary.

That is the physical quantity that matters.

---

10. The Primary Experimental Question

The mission should therefore ask:

> Does changing a registered internal electrostatic state produce a repeatable change in the complete spacecraft's acceleration that follows the predicted device vector after known external forces are measured and bounded?

Let experimental state $S_i$ produce observed residual acceleration:

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}(S_i).

A minimal propulsion hypothesis should predict more than:

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}\neq0.

It should predict direction.

For opposite device states:

S_+

\rightarrow

+\hat{\mathbf n},

S_-

\rightarrow

-\hat{\mathbf n}.

A much stronger result is therefore:

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}(S_+)

\approx

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}(S_-).

The null state should satisfy:

|\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}(S_0)|<\delta,

for a prospectively defined sensitivity threshold $\delta$.

---

11. Direction Is More Informative Than Detection Alone

A spacecraft can deviate from its predicted orbit for many reasons.

Therefore:

a\neq0

is weak evidence by itself.

A commanded vector reversal is considerably stronger.

Define the registered device axis:

\hat{\mathbf n}_D.

Then project the residual acceleration:

a_D

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}

\cdot

\hat{\mathbf n}_D.

The orthogonal residual is:

\mathbf a_\perp

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}

a_D\hat{\mathbf n}_D.

If the propulsion hypothesis predicts thrust along the device axis, the strongest signal should primarily appear in $a_D$.

When the internal thrust geometry is reversed:

\hat{\mathbf n}_D

\rightarrow

-\hat{\mathbf n}_D,

the predicted acceleration should reverse.

That gives the experiment a causal signature rather than merely an anomaly.

---

12. Do Not Begin by Rotating the Whole Spacecraft

A tempting test is to rotate the satellite 180° and see whether acceleration reverses.

That is useful, but it should not necessarily be the strongest primary test.

Rotating the entire spacecraft also changes relationships to:

sunlight;

atmospheric drag;

Earth infrared radiation;

geomagnetic field;

solar-radiation pressure;

antenna radiation patterns;

spacecraft charging;

and thermal geometry.

A cleaner primary design reverses the internal device vector while holding the external spacecraft attitude fixed.

This could be accomplished using:

two mirrored thruster modules;

a physically reversible internal device;

or equivalent opposite-axis experimental assemblies.

Then:

D_+\rightarrow +\mathbf F,

D_-\rightarrow -\mathbf F,

while the spacecraft's external geometry remains approximately unchanged.

That is a stronger causal test.

---

13. The Matched-Mirror Architecture

Consider two internal modules:

D_+

and:

D_-,

mounted along opposite directions of the same spacecraft body axis.

Their relevant characteristics should be matched as closely as practical:

mass;

electrical demand;

stored energy;

thermal output;

shielding;

structural attachment;

wiring;

materials;

and timing.

During one window:

D_+\text{ active},\qquad D_-\text{ inactive}.

During another:

D_-\text{ active},\qquad D_+\text{ inactive}.

If the claim is genuine:

a(D_+)\approx-a(D_-).

The useful differential quantity becomes:

\Delta a

a(D_+)-a(D_-).

Many environmental forces remain approximately unchanged between the two conditions.

The predicted propulsion vector does not.

---

14. The Experimental State Matrix

A scientifically useful orbital experiment should contain more than ON and OFF.

At minimum:

$S_0$: Discharged Baseline

No intended active electrostatic state.

$S_+$: Positive Active Vector

Device configuration predicted to accelerate along $+\hat{\mathbf n}_D$.

$S_-$: Reversed Active Vector

Matched configuration predicted to accelerate along $-\hat{\mathbf n}_D$.

$S_H$: Sham State

Electrical and thermal behavior reproduced without the hypothesized thrust-producing asymmetry.

$S_C$: Charged, External Supply Disconnected

Stored electrostatic state remains but the external charging supply is disconnected.

$S_D$: Deliberately Discharged

Stored charge/field is intentionally collapsed.

A primary sequence might therefore include:

S_0

\rightarrow

S_+

\rightarrow

S_0

\rightarrow

S_H

\rightarrow

S_0

\rightarrow

S_-

\rightarrow

S_0.

The ordering should eventually be randomized rather than fixed.

---

15. The Power-Off Claim Must Be Separated From the Powered Claim

The supplied transcript contains two materially different reported regimes.

In one demonstrated scale configuration, the reported force rises after voltage is applied and falls again when the power is switched off.

Elsewhere, Buhler discusses configurations in which a force is claimed to remain after external power is removed because the electrostatic fields remain established.

These should never be conflated.

They imply different hypotheses.

Define:

H_P:

\text{force requires continuous powered state},

and:

H_C:

\text{force persists in a stored-charge state}.

The orbital mission should test them independently.

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16. Power-Off Does Not Mean Energy-Free

Disconnecting an electrical supply is not equivalent to removing stored electrostatic energy.

For an ideal capacitor:

U_E=\frac12CV^2.

A real experimental device may require a more complete distributed-field description, but the principle remains.

Therefore a persistent-force experiment should continuously measure, as far as technically feasible:

V(t),

Q(t),

I_{\mathrm{leak}}(t),

E(t),

T(t),

and:

a(t).

The critical sequence becomes:

\text{charge}

\rightarrow

\text{disconnect}

\rightarrow

\text{observe}

\rightarrow

\text{deliberately discharge}

\rightarrow

\text{observe}.

If acceleration persists while the electrostatic state persists and terminates when the stored state is deliberately collapsed, the evidentiary value is far greater than merely observing motion after unplugging a power lead.

---

17. Energy Accounting in the Persistent Regime

Suppose a charged spacecraft continues to accelerate.

Then the experiment should compare the mechanical consequences with the stored electrical state.

At minimum:

\Delta E_{\mathrm{mech}}

must be considered relative to:

\Delta U_E,

plus:

radiation;

heat;

emitted particles;

interaction with ambient plasma;

electromagnetic-field exchange;

and other registered energy channels.

No claim of energy nonconservation should arise simply because:

P_{\mathrm{external}}=0.

The relevant question is whether the complete registered energy ledger closes.

---

18. The Spacecraft Becomes the Primary Receiver

A conventional experimental payload carries a detector.

Here, the spacecraft's motion is the primary detector.

The fundamental receiver becomes:

R_1=

\text{trajectory}.

A second independent receiver should be:

R_2=

\text{onboard inertial acceleration}.

Additional receivers may include:

GNSS-derived orbit solutions;

Doppler tracking;

ground-based ranging;

laser ranging if compatible;

intersatellite ranging;

star-tracker attitude;

precision accelerometry;

spacecraft-potential sensing;

magnetometry;

thermal telemetry;

and electrical telemetry.

GPS/GNSS and high-accuracy accelerometry are established tools in spacecraft orbit and formation-flight determination rather than speculative instrumentation. NASA technical work describes spacecraft architectures using dual-frequency GPS and high-accuracy accelerometers for precise orbit determination.

The novelty lies in what these receivers are being asked to establish.

---

19. The No-Single-Receiver Rule

No single measurement channel should carry a claim this consequential.

Suppose:

R_1

shows acceleration but:

R_2

does not.

That disagreement is important.

An accelerometer can drift.

An orbit model can be wrong.

A GNSS solution can contain estimation errors.

A spacecraft can rotate or flex.

A thermal transient can contaminate an inertial receiver.

A strong result therefore requires receiver convergence.

Ideally:

a_{\mathrm{IMU}}

\approx

a_{\mathrm{orbit}}

within the registered uncertainty and transfer function.

If a companion spacecraft is used, a third receiver can be:

R_3=

\text{relative separation/ranging}.

Three physically different receivers greatly constrain artifact space.

---

20. Space Is Not Isolated

The most dangerous conceptual mistake would be:

\text{space}

\text{nothing}.

It is not.

A free-flying spacecraft interacts with:

Earth's gravitational field;

residual atmosphere;

solar photons;

Earth-reflected solar radiation;

Earth infrared radiation;

geomagnetic fields;

ionospheric and magnetospheric plasma;

spacecraft charging;

emitted radio waves;

thermal radiation;

outgassing;

charged particles;

attitude-control systems;

internal rotating machinery;

and other environmental structures.

The experimental advantage of orbit is therefore not isolation from reality.

It is a radically different relationship set.

That is precisely the boundary-first point.

---

21. The Orbital Force Ledger

The observed non-gravitational acceleration may be represented conceptually as:

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{obs}}

\mathbf a_G

\mathbf a_D

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{SRP}}

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{ER}}

\mathbf a_Q

\mathbf a_M

\mathbf a_T

\mathbf a_O

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{RF}}

\mathbf a_X,

where:

$\mathbf a_G$: modeled gravitational effects;

$\mathbf a_D$: atmospheric drag;

$\mathbf a_{\mathrm{SRP}}$: solar-radiation pressure;

$\mathbf a_{\mathrm{ER}}$: Earth radiation and albedo;

$\mathbf a_Q$: charging/plasma/electrodynamic effects;

$\mathbf a_M$: magnetic interaction;

$\mathbf a_T$: thermal recoil;

$\mathbf a_O$: outgassing or operational disturbances;

$\mathbf a_{\mathrm{RF}}$: transmitted-photon recoil;

$\mathbf a_X$: unresolved component.

This expression is not intended to imply that every spacecraft disturbance can be treated as an independent linear additive scalar. Actual orbit determination would require vector dynamics, covariance treatment, parameter correlations, temporal structure, and mission-specific modeling.

Its purpose is methodological:

> An omitted conventional term does not become new physics merely because it first appears in the residual.

---

22. Atmospheric Drag

Low Earth orbit retains a tenuous atmosphere.

The familiar approximate drag relation is:

\mathbf F_D

-\frac12

\rho C_D A v_{\mathrm{rel}}^2

\hat{\mathbf v}_{\mathrm{rel}}.

A free-flight propulsion experiment should therefore record or model:

spacecraft attitude;

projected area;

atmospheric density;

relative velocity;

drag coefficient;

orbital altitude;

and relevant solar/geomagnetic activity affecting density.

This is another reason internal vector reversal with fixed spacecraft attitude is powerful.

If external geometry remains fixed while the residual reverses, ordinary drag becomes much less plausible as the cause.

---

23. Solar-Radiation Pressure

Sunlight transfers momentum.

Therefore every science interval should preserve the Sun vector:

\hat{\mathbf s}.

If the residual acceleration correlates with:

\hat{\mathbf s}

rather than:

\hat{\mathbf n}_D,

solar-radiation pressure or thermally mediated solar effects gain explanatory strength.

If the internal device vector reverses while solar geometry remains nearly fixed and the acceleration reverses with the device, the solar explanation weakens substantially.

Environmental variation is therefore not merely noise.

It becomes a discriminating variable.

---

24. Thermal Recoil

Electromagnetic radiation carries momentum.

For perfectly directed electromagnetic power:

F=\frac{P}{c}.

Therefore an apparent:

1\ \mathrm{mN}

force would require approximately:

\approx

3\times10^5\ \mathrm W

if explained solely through perfectly collimated photon emission.

That does not mean thermal effects can simply be dismissed. Smaller residuals, asymmetric heating, long integration times, desorption, changing radiative geometry, and correlations with active electrical states remain important.

The correct scientific response is not:

thermal recoil is obviously impossible.

It is:

measure the thermal field and calculate its maximum plausible contribution.

---

25. Outgassing and Conventional Reaction Mass

A device described as propellantless must still be tested for unintended mass ejection.

Potential sources include:

absorbed moisture;

polymer outgassing;

dielectric decomposition;

field-induced desorption;

sputtering;

corona products;

venting;

battery gases;

charged particles;

and contamination release.

The momentum relationship:

F=\dot m v_e

provides an important constraint.

For a candidate force $F$, any conventional exhaust hypothesis with characteristic velocity $v_e$ requires:

\dot m

\frac{F}{v_e}.

Preflight vacuum characterization can therefore place quantitative bounds on classes of ordinary reaction-mass explanations.

---

26. Spacecraft Charging and Plasma

Because the payload is fundamentally electrostatic, spacecraft charging cannot be treated as a secondary issue.

The mission should monitor, where feasible:

V_{\mathrm{sc}},

spacecraft potential;

Q_{\mathrm{sc}},

spacecraft charge;

\mathbf B,

magnetic field;

and relevant plasma/environmental quantities.

The apparatus should determine whether activation changes the charge state of the whole spacecraft.

This matters because an electrically charged spacecraft moving through an external electromagnetic environment is not equivalent to an isolated electrostatic device.

A Faraday enclosure changes electric-field coupling.

It does not abolish every electromagnetic relation.

Buhler explicitly distinguishes Faraday shielding of electric-field interactions from magnetic effects in the supplied discussion.

That distinction should become part of the orbital protocol.

---

27. Attitude-Control Contamination

Primary science intervals should avoid unnecessary activity from systems capable of creating mechanical or electromagnetic disturbances.

Where mission safety permits, measurement windows should avoid:

reaction-wheel desaturation;

magnetorquer operation;

thruster firing;

moving appendages;

deployment mechanisms;

large heater switching;

and unnecessary transmitter operation.

Wheel speeds, torques, and currents should nevertheless be logged continuously.

The experiment cannot claim an anomalous spacecraft force during a window in which the spacecraft is simultaneously performing poorly characterized control actions.

---

28. Radio-Silent Science Windows

Radio emission carries momentum and often generates electrical and thermal transients.

A particularly clean measurement interval could therefore use:

onboard storage;

receive-only navigation;

no intentional high-power transmission;

stable attitude;

no propulsion;

no wheel desaturation;

no deployment;

fixed payload state except for the registered experiment.

Data can be transmitted after the measurement interval.

This turns the spacecraft into a deliberately quiet dynamical system during the period in which the candidate acceleration accumulates.

---

29. Let the Environment Rotate Around the Hypothesis

Orbit naturally changes several environmental vectors.

Over time:

the Sun direction changes relative to the spacecraft;

the local geomagnetic vector changes;

Earth radial direction changes;

velocity direction changes;

plasma environment changes;

atmospheric density changes;

eclipse transitions occur.

These variations can be exploited.

Define competing hypotheses:

H_D:

\mathbf a_X

\parallel

\hat{\mathbf n}_D,

H_S:

\mathbf a_X

\parallel

\hat{\mathbf s},

H_V:

\mathbf a_X

\parallel

\hat{\mathbf v},

H_R:

\mathbf a_X

\parallel

\hat{\mathbf r},

H_B:

\mathbf a_X

f(\mathbf B,Q,V).

The experiment can then ask:

Which physical vector actually organizes the residual?

That is much stronger than merely asking whether the orbit solution contains unexplained noise.

---

30. The Sham Experiment

A weak control would simply leave the device off.

That is insufficient.

A serious sham state should reproduce as much as possible:

electrical power draw;

stored electrical energy;

switching;

timing;

heat;

electromagnetic noise;

mechanical structure;

mass;

shielding;

wiring;

and control commands,

while removing or symmetrizing the claimed thrust-producing feature.

The sham asks:

> Does simply energizing, charging, heating, or electrically stressing the spacecraft reproduce the apparent acceleration?

If yes, the propulsion interpretation weakens.

If no, the route space narrows.

---

31. Randomization

A perfectly repeating sequence such as:

OFF

\rightarrow

OFF

\rightarrow

can accidentally correlate with orbital period, eclipse timing, thermal cycles, communication windows, or another environmental recurrence.

Therefore the confirmatory state sequence should be randomized or pseudorandomized under predefined operational constraints.

For example:

S_H,\ S_+,\ S_0,\ S_-,\ S_0,\ S_C,\ldots

The schedule should be generated before confirmatory data analysis and preserved.

Randomization transforms several otherwise troublesome temporal correlations into testable alternatives.

---

32. Blind the Analysts

The orbital-dynamics team need not know which intervals correspond to the active device.

A stronger architecture separates responsibilities:

Command Group

Holds the randomized payload-state schedule.

Payload Group

Confirms electrical, thermal, charge, and hardware state.

Orbit Group

Estimates residual acceleration without knowing the experimental labels.

The orbit group produces:

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}(t)

and freezes its analysis.

Only afterward are the payload-state labels revealed.

Then:

P(\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}\mid S_i)

is evaluated.

This guards against unconsciously tuning orbit models, filtering choices, data cuts, or analysis windows toward the expected result.

---

33. Preflight Prediction Lock

Before confirmatory flight measurements, the following should be publicly registered or cryptographically timestamped:

1. complete spacecraft system boundary;

2. test article identity;

3. active state;

4. reverse state;

5. sham state;

6. charged-unpowered state;

7. discharged state;

8. predicted force axis;

9. predicted sign reversal;

10. expected magnitude or bounded range if available;

11. minimum detectable acceleration;

12. minimum useful measurement duration;

13. acceptable thermal range;

14. acceptable spacecraft-potential range;

15. environmental exclusion criteria;

16. orbit-model architecture;

17. calibration procedure;

18. data-exclusion criteria;

19. analysis pipeline;

20. falsification rule.

An unexpected flight behavior may legitimately inspire a new hypothesis.

But:

\text{unexpected result}

\rightarrow

\text{new hypothesis}

\rightarrow

\text{new locked test}

is scientifically different from:

\text{unexpected result}

\rightarrow

\text{retroactive prediction}.

---

34. A Formal Prediction Record

The orbital experiment can be summarized as:

P_O

(B,D,S,R,\tau,E,N,\Delta,F),

where:

$B$: complete system boundary;

$D$: device configuration;

$S$: registered experimental state;

$R$: receiver set;

$\tau$: observation interval;

$E$: environmental ledger;

$N$: strongest conventional comparator/null;

$\Delta$: decision threshold or equivalence margin;

$F$: explicit falsifier.

A positive result should satisfy the locked record.

A negative result should also be allowed to count.

That symmetry is essential.

---

35. Primary Falsification Condition

Suppose the developers register a predicted acceleration:

a_P.

The spacecraft and analysis architecture must demonstrate sensitivity:

a_{\min}<a_P

with an adequate preregistered margin.

The relevant propulsion claim is weakened or falsified for that registered configuration when:

1. the payload successfully reaches its specified active state;

2. receiver sensitivity passes;

3. environmental conditions satisfy the registered limits;

4. spacecraft operations remain clean;

5. sham behavior is acceptable;

6. and the predicted device-axis acceleration remains within the null equivalence region.

A weak instrument cannot falsify a stronger signal than it can detect.

But a sufficiently sensitive null can.

---

36. Directional Falsification

Suppose:

S_+\rightarrow+a_D

and:

S_-\rightarrow-a_D

are prospectively predicted.

If both states instead produce acceleration in the same Sun-fixed or Earth-fixed direction, the device-axis propulsion hypothesis is weakened.

If the residual follows:

\mathbf B,

or:

\hat{\mathbf v},

or:

\hat{\mathbf s},

rather than:

\hat{\mathbf n}_D,

the corresponding environmental mechanism becomes more plausible.

A claim about propulsion should be willing to lose on direction.

---

37. Persistence Falsification

A charged-unpowered force claim requires its own explicit falsifier.

The experiment should specify:

what “power off” means;

permitted residual supply current;

minimum stored voltage;

expected persistence period;

expected force direction;

expected decay behavior if known;

required deliberate-discharge response.

A powerful sequence is:

S_+

\rightarrow

S_C

\rightarrow

S_D.

If acceleration remains during:

S_C

but disappears promptly during:

S_D,

the stored electrostatic state becomes strongly implicated.

If the acceleration instead persists after physical discharge, the stored-charge explanation weakens.

Either result is informative.

---

38. Whole-Spacecraft Reversal as a Secondary Test

After internal vector reversal has been established, the entire spacecraft can be rotated.

Suppose the same internal device remains active while:

\text{spacecraft attitude}

\rightarrow

180^\circ.

Now the relation between the device and external vectors changes.

The result can distinguish:

device-fixed effects;

Sun-fixed effects;

Earth-fixed effects;

magnetic effects;

thermal effects;

and geometry-dependent charging.

Because the maneuver itself changes multiple variables, it should be treated as a deliberate boundary-swap experiment, not as an isolated proof.

---

39. The Stronger Two-Spacecraft Experiment

A more powerful architecture uses two nearly identical spacecraft:

and:

They should be matched closely in:

mass;

geometry;

area-to-mass ratio;

surface materials;

solar arrays;

electronics;

thermal architecture;

orbit;

attitude;

communications;

and sensors.

Initially:

A=\text{active},

B=\text{control}.

Then, if technically possible:

A=\text{control},

B=\text{active}.

The differential acceleration is:

\Delta\mathbf a

\mathbf a_A-\mathbf a_B.

Many common environmental effects are reduced in the difference.

---

40. The Crossover Experiment

The strongest twin-spacecraft design moves the causal condition between spacecraft.

For example:

A_+B_0

\rightarrow

A_0B_+

and:

A_-B_0

\rightarrow

A_0B_-.

Suppose spacecraft $A$ initially shows an anomalous acceleration.

One might reasonably suspect an unmodeled property unique to $A$.

But if $A$ becomes the control and the residual moves to $B$ when the active state moves to $B$, the explanation must now account for why the anomalous behavior follows the experimental condition rather than spacecraft identity.

That is extraordinarily useful causal information.

---

41. Relative Ranging

A two-spacecraft architecture offers another important receiver.

Instead of reconstructing two independent absolute orbits alone, measure their changing separation.

Let:

\mathbf r_{AB}

\mathbf r_A-\mathbf r_B.

Then:

\Delta\mathbf a_{AB}

\mathbf a_A-\mathbf a_B.

Relative navigation can suppress some common-mode orbit-model errors.

NASA formation-flying research already uses precise GPS-based orbit determination and accelerometry in multi-spacecraft settings, illustrating the maturity of the underlying measurement concepts.

The propulsion experiment would use those established techniques for a different physical question.

---

42. Proprietary Hardware Does Not Prevent the First Whole-System Test

A commercial developer may not wish to publish every electrode geometry, material composition, manufacturing method, or field-enhancement structure before intellectual-property protections are secure.

That does not prevent the first orbital question from being tested:

\boxed{

\text{Does the complete spacecraft accelerate?}

}

Independent analysts need sufficient access to:

registered state;

total mass;

thrust axis;

electrical state;

stored energy;

leakage;

charge;

thermal output;

switching times;

field containment;

environmental telemetry;

and complete trajectory data.

Full mechanism replication ultimately requires deeper disclosure.

But whole-spacecraft motion can be tested before every proprietary engineering detail is public.

---

43. Why a Rideshare Mission Is Realistic

A test of this kind does not require purchasing an entire launch vehicle.

Commercial dedicated smallsat rideshare flights are already routine. SpaceX's current public rideshare offering lists service beginning at $350,000 for up to 50 kg to sun-synchronous orbit, with additional mass priced separately.

SpaceX's Transporter-17 mission in July 2026 carried 81 payloads, including CubeSats, microsatellites, hosted payloads, and orbital-transfer payloads, demonstrating the scale at which secondary spacecraft are now routinely aggregated onto a single launch.

NASA likewise uses commercial rideshare missions for SmallSat and CubeSat technology demonstrations, and its Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute describes both dedicated and rideshare launch options for SmallSats.

This does not mean the entire mission costs only the advertised launch price.

The spacecraft must still be:

engineered;

built;

tested;

environmentally qualified;

integrated;

licensed;

tracked;

operated;

and disposed of responsibly.

NASA explicitly notes that launch integration remains a complex and critical part of SmallSat missions even when rideshare is used.

The important point is narrower:

The experiment need not fund the rocket.

---

44. The Mission Should Be Built Around Science, Not Around the Cheapest Orbit

The first available rideshare orbit may not be the optimal experiment.

Orbit selection should consider:

residual atmosphere;

radiation;

spacecraft charging;

geomagnetic field;

eclipse frequency;

GNSS availability;

communications;

thermal stability;

mission lifetime;

debris environment;

and the expected force magnitude.

A lower altitude may provide simpler communications and shorter debris lifetime but greater atmospheric drag.

A higher orbit may reduce drag but alter charging and disposal considerations.

The correct optimization is not:

\text{minimum launch price}.

It is:

\boxed{

\text{maximum experimental discrimination per total mission cost}.

}

---

45. End-of-Life Must Not Depend on the Experimental Propulsion System

The satellite should have a compliant disposal strategy independent of whether the anomalous propulsion system works.

The FCC's current orbital-debris framework includes a five-year post-mission disposal requirement for relevant LEO spacecraft subject to its rules.

Therefore the experimental thruster should not be the sole method for:

deorbit;

collision avoidance;

mission survival;

or required spacecraft control.

A technology under test must be allowed to fail without creating an uncontrolled debris problem.

---

46. The Minimal Science Window

A primary measurement window could follow this architecture.

Pre-Window

establish orbit solution;

stabilize spacecraft attitude;

record environmental state;

establish thermal baseline;

verify spacecraft charge;

complete communication activity;

settle reaction wheels;

confirm no maneuver is occurring.

Measurement Window

fixed external spacecraft attitude;

no conventional translational propulsion;

no magnetorquer activity where safe;

no wheel desaturation;

no deployment mechanisms;

preferably no transmission;

continuous GNSS reception;

continuous inertial sensing;

continuous electrical/thermal/environmental logging;

blinded payload state.

Post-Window

return payload to safe state;

preserve raw data;

resume communication;

update orbit solution;

proceed to the next randomized state.

This structure should be repeated many times.

---

47. What the Strongest Positive Result Would Look Like

The ideal positive result is not:

The satellite's orbit changed.

It is a structured result containing multiple independent constraints:

1. $D_+$ produces residual acceleration along $+\hat{\mathbf n}_D$.

2. $D_-$ produces residual acceleration along $-\hat{\mathbf n}_D$.

3. The external spacecraft attitude does not change between those states.

4. The sham produces no corresponding residual.

5. The discharged state produces no corresponding residual.

6. Onboard inertial measurements and orbit determination agree.

7. The magnitude follows a prospectively registered control variable or scaling relation.

8. The effect repeats at different orbital positions.

9. It does not track the Sun, atmospheric velocity, Earth radial direction, magnetic field, or another conventional environmental vector.

10. Independent replication reproduces the result.

Only then does the phrase whole-spacecraft residual become justified.

---

48. What the Strongest Null Result Would Look Like

A strong negative experiment also requires structure.

Suppose:

the flight device passes preflight qualification;

it reaches its registered electrostatic state in orbit;

onboard diagnostics verify that state;

measurement sensitivity exceeds the preregistered requirement;

environmental disturbances remain within the accepted limits;

and neither orbit determination nor inertial sensing shows the predicted acceleration.

Then the result establishes something scientifically important:

|a_D|<\delta

for that registered device and orbital architecture.

That could indicate:

the terrestrial effect was apparatus-mediated;

the terrestrial force estimate was wrong;

the propulsion effect does not act on the complete system;

the effect depends on a terrestrial boundary;

or the specific flight article does not reproduce the terrestrial phenomenon.

None of those outcomes is scientifically empty.

---

49. A Null Result Could Reveal the Boundary

This possibility deserves special emphasis.

Suppose a laboratory effect remains highly repeatable but disappears completely in free flight.

One interpretation would be:

F(D,B_{\mathrm{Earth}})

rather than:

F(D)

alone.

In other words, the terrestrial experimental environment may provide a necessary reaction partner.

Candidates might include:

surrounding conductors;

electrostatic reference structures;

support systems;

atmosphere;

laboratory ground;

nearby mass;

environmental fields;

or another physical route.

That would not prove a new mechanism.

But it would establish that the laboratory boundary was causally important.

A well-designed null can therefore teach as much as a positive result.

---

50. A Positive Result Creates a Momentum Problem

Suppose the complete spacecraft demonstrably accelerates.

Then the scientific problem changes.

The question is no longer:

Did the apparatus move?

It is:

\boxed{

\text{Where did the opposite momentum go?}

}

The conventional accounting requirement becomes:

\Delta\mathbf P_{\mathrm{sc}}

\Delta\mathbf P_{\mathrm{environment}}

Candidate external momentum channels include:

electromagnetic radiation;

electromagnetic fields;

ambient plasma;

charged particles;

expelled material;

gravitational interaction;

solar radiation;

geomagnetic coupling;

and other conventional environmental processes.

These must be tested before concluding that momentum conservation has failed.

---

51. Only Then Does Latching Onto Space Become Necessary

The purpose of Latching Onto Space was not to declare that electrostatic devices already couple to a deeper substrate.

Its meaningful scientific role begins if conventional accounting fails.

The evidentiary progression should therefore be:

\text{reported laboratory force}

\downarrow

\text{qualified terrestrial residual}

\downarrow

\text{whole-spacecraft free-flight residual}

\downarrow

\text{conventional momentum accounting}

\downarrow

\text{mechanism discrimination}

and only then, if required:

\boxed{

\text{deeper substrate-coupling hypothesis}.

}

That order protects the hypothesis from becoming a post-hoc explanation for every unexplained motion.

---

52. Relationship to Inside Is Not Isolated

The free-flight experiment is a direct extension of the principle developed in Inside Is Not Isolated:

> A boundary suppresses some relations while admitting, transforming, or creating others.

A vacuum chamber suppresses many gas-mediated interactions.

It creates a new nearby physical boundary.

A Faraday cage reduces particular electric-field interactions.

It does not abolish gravity, magnetism, heat, mechanical force, radiation, or all electromagnetic behavior.

A spacecraft removes the laboratory floor, chamber support, and terrestrial force receiver.

It introduces orbital plasma, radiation, spacecraft charging, thermal recoil, and other relationships.

Thus:

\text{Earth laboratory}

\neq

\text{orbit}

but neither is:

\text{isolated from reality}.

The test succeeds because the relationship set changes in a measurable way.

---

53. Relationship to Before the Residual

Before the Residual established a hierarchy:

\text{Observation}

\rightarrow

\text{Validated Measurement}

\rightarrow

\text{Model Discrepancy}

\rightarrow

\text{Qualified Residual}

\rightarrow

\text{Mechanism-Specific Anomaly}

\rightarrow

\text{Theory Discrimination}.

The present experiment is an application of that hierarchy.

A satellite trajectory residual begins only as:

O_{\mathrm{observed}}

O_{\mathrm{predicted}}.

It does not begin as new propulsion.

The residual must survive:

calibration;

orbit-model uncertainty;

drag;

radiation pressure;

thermal effects;

charging;

magnetic interactions;

outgassing;

spacecraft operations;

receiver comparison;

sham states;

state reversal;

and replication.

Only after that does interpretation escalate.

---

54. Relationship to TSTOEAO

Within TSTOEAO, the experiment can be interpreted through:

V=E\times Y,

where realized expression $V$ depends not merely upon available Energy/Opportunity $E$, but upon Encoded Equilibrium $Y$: the architecture of admissible routes, boundary conditions, transformations, receivers, costs, and correction pathways.

The orbital experiment deliberately changes:

The device may remain substantially the same.

Its relational architecture does not.

Thus:

Y_{\mathrm{lab}}

\neq

Y_{\mathrm{orbit}}.

This does not make every difference evidence for TSTOEAO.

Instead it produces a disciplined boundary-swap experiment.

If the effect is invariant:

F_{\mathrm{lab}}

\approx

F_{\mathrm{orbit}},

that tells us one thing.

If it changes:

F_{\mathrm{lab}}

\neq

F_{\mathrm{orbit}},

that tells us another.

If it disappears:

F_{\mathrm{orbit}}

\approx0,

that tells us something else.

The framework must accept all three outcomes.

---

55. The Four-Paper Scientific Sequence

The methodological sequence now becomes unusually coherent.

I. Before the Residual

What must an apparent discrepancy survive before science should interpret it?

II. Inside Is Not Isolated

What does an experimental boundary actually suppress, and what relations remain?

III. Space Is the Experiment

Does the complete free-flying system acquire the claimed acceleration?

IV. Latching Onto Space

If a genuine whole-system momentum residual survives, what deeper coupling could explain it and what experiment could distinguish that explanation from conventional physics?

The complete sequence is:

\boxed{

\text{Measure}

\rightarrow

\text{Bound}

\rightarrow

\text{Challenge}

\rightarrow

\text{Fly}

\rightarrow

\text{Qualify}

\rightarrow

\text{Account}

\rightarrow

\text{Interpret}

\rightarrow

\text{Discriminate}

}

No inferential step is automatic.

---

56. Proposed Orbital Evidentiary Ladder

For clarity, orbital results can be classified independently of theoretical interpretation.

O-0 — Qualified Null

No device-correlated acceleration above the registered threshold.

O-1 — Operational Correlation

Acceleration correlates with payload activity, but conventional spacecraft mechanisms remain plausible.

O-2 — Reversible Device-Vector Residual

Acceleration reverses with the internal device vector while external geometry remains approximately fixed.

O-3 — Multi-Receiver Residual

Independent inertial and orbital receivers agree.

O-4 — Environmental Discrimination

The residual survives registered tests against drag, radiation pressure, charging, magnetic interaction, thermal recoil, outgassing, and spacecraft operations.

O-5 — Independent Replication

A separately constructed mission reproduces the result.

O-6 — Momentum-Accounting Anomaly

Known external momentum channels fail quantitatively to close the measured momentum change.

O-7 — New-Mechanism Discrimination

Competing physical explanations make distinct prospective predictions and a subsequent experiment resolves them.

This ladder prevents a successful first flight from being rhetorically promoted directly to new physics.

---

57. Failure Modes of the Experiment Itself

An orbital mission would be scientifically weakened if:

the active windows are selected after inspecting trajectory residuals;

the active state is poorly diagnosed;

spacecraft attitude changes whenever the device state changes;

thermal output is unmeasured;

charge state is unknown;

a weak sham is used;

magnetorquer or wheel disturbances correlate with active intervals;

data exclusions are invented after the result;

only one receiver reports acceleration;

orbit-model parameters are freely adjusted until the effect appears;

negative runs are hidden;

or the hypothesis changes after flight.

Putting an experiment in orbit does not automatically make it rigorous.

The experiment is rigorous only if it is designed so that it can lose.

---

58. Why the Test Is Worth Doing

The question is not whether the probability of revolutionary physics is high.

The question is whether the information gained justifies the test.

That depends upon:

the reported force magnitude;

terrestrial reproducibility;

remaining experimental ambiguity;

mission cost;

ability to design meaningful controls;

consequence of a positive result;

consequence of a strong null;

and availability of established small-spacecraft infrastructure.

Commercial rideshare has reduced one historically dominant obstacle: the experiment does not require its own rocket. SpaceX currently advertises smallsat rideshare capacity directly, and NASA continues to use commercial rideshare for small-spacecraft technology demonstrations.

If millinewton-class whole-system thrust exists, a modest free-flying spacecraft can turn it into an accumulating orbital signal.

If it does not exist, a properly sensitive orbital null can eliminate important interpretations.

Either outcome advances the problem.

---

59. The Deeper Experimental Principle

The central methodological lesson extends beyond electrostatic propulsion.

Sometimes science improves an experiment by adding another layer of control.

Sometimes science improves an experiment by changing the boundary.

The distinction matters.

If every new terrestrial control creates another physical relation that must then be modeled, there comes a point at which the more powerful test is not:

\text{another enclosure}.

It is:

\boxed{

\text{a different experimental architecture}.

}

For propulsion, free flight is uniquely compelling because propulsion is ultimately a claim about the movement of a free body.

There may be no better force balance for a spacecraft engine than the spacecraft itself.

---

Conclusion

Claims of propellantless electrostatic thrust should not be accepted because a device moves inside a laboratory.

Nor should they be dismissed merely because the proposed mechanism does not yet fit an accepted theoretical category.

The correct response is experimental escalation.

The supplied Charles Buhler interview describes extensive efforts to remove ion wind, Coulomb attraction, measurement artifacts, and other conventional explanations. It also reveals the fundamental difficulty of the problem: each terrestrial apparatus used to establish the force becomes another physical structure with which the experimental system can interact. Buhler's own insistence that force be measured on the whole enclosure rather than merely on the device points toward the next logical step.

Remove the laboratory support.

Put the complete apparatus in free flight.

Do not merely ask whether an internal component appears to push.

Ask whether the spacecraft's total center of mass accelerates.

Do not merely turn the device on.

Reverse its predicted vector while keeping the external spacecraft boundary fixed.

Do not merely compare ON with OFF.

Compare active, reverse, sham, charged-unpowered, deliberately discharged, and baseline states.

Do not merely record one sensor.

Require agreement between inertial and orbital receivers.

Do not call space isolated.

Measure drag, radiation pressure, plasma, charging, magnetic interaction, thermal recoil, outgassing, and spacecraft operations.

Do not reveal the active schedule to every analyst.

Blind part of the analysis.

Do not decide afterward what result the device was supposed to produce.

Lock the prediction before the flight data are examined.

And do not call a surviving acceleration evidence of a substrate until the conventional momentum ledger has been attacked as aggressively as possible.

The scientific outcomes are then cleanly separated.

If the effect disappears in free flight, the terrestrial boundary becomes part of the explanation.

If the effect follows a conventional orbital variable, that variable becomes part of the explanation.

If the effect survives but is spacecraft-specific, the spacecraft architecture becomes part of the explanation.

If the effect reverses with a hidden internal device vector while the external spacecraft geometry remains unchanged, the evidentiary burden shifts dramatically.

If an independent spacecraft reproduces that behavior, the question becomes stronger still.

And if, after all registered external momentum channels are measured and bounded, a complete free-flying spacecraft repeatedly gains momentum in a commanded direction without conventional reaction mass or identifiable momentum exchange, then science has earned the right to ask the deeper question:

\boxed{

\text{What is the spacecraft pushing against?}

}

That is where new physical interpretation should begin—not before.

The experiment therefore does not require anyone to accept electrogravity.

It does not require anyone to accept vacuum propulsion.

It does not require anyone to accept TSTOEAO.

It requires only that a propulsion claim eventually be tested as propulsion.

A propulsion system is supposed to move a free vehicle.

So free the vehicle.

The spacecraft does not merely carry the laboratory.

The spacecraft becomes the laboratory.

Space is the experiment.

---

Appendix A

Minimum Orbital Prediction Record

Before confirmatory flight data are examined, register the following.

System boundary

\text{complete spacecraft}.

Flight device

Exact hardware configuration or immutable configuration identifier.

Active states

S_+,\quad S_-.

Null state

S_0.

Sham

S_H.

Charged-unpowered state

S_C.

Discharged state

S_D.

Declared thrust axis

\hat{\mathbf n}_D.

Spacecraft mass

m\pm u_m.

Predicted force

F_P

or registered range if the developer can justify one.

Predicted acceleration

a_P=\frac{F_P}{m}.

Primary receiver

Orbit determination.

Independent receiver

Onboard accelerometry.

Optional third receiver

Relative spacecraft ranging.

Observation interval

\tau.

Environmental ledger

Drag, solar radiation, Earth radiation, charging, plasma, magnetic coupling, thermal recoil, outgassing, RF recoil, attitude-control disturbances.

Decision threshold

\Delta.

Falsifier

Qualified null or wrong-direction result under registered sensitivity.

Replication standard

Repeat count plus independent mission criterion.

---

Appendix B

Required Vector and State Ledger

For every confirmatory science interval preserve at least:

time;

\mathbf r(t)

spacecraft position;

\mathbf v(t)

spacecraft velocity;

\hat{\mathbf n}_D

device axis;

\hat{\mathbf s}

Sun vector;

\hat{\mathbf r}_E

Earth radial vector;

\mathbf B

magnetic field;

V_{\mathrm{sc}}

spacecraft potential;

Q_{\mathrm{sc}}

spacecraft charge where measurable;

V_D(t), Q_D(t), I_D(t)

device electrical state;

T_i(t)

thermal sensor array;

\boldsymbol\omega(t)

spacecraft angular rate;

\mathbf a_{\mathrm{IMU}}(t)

inertial acceleration;

S_i

experimental-state code.

The central comparison is:

P(\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}\mid \hat{\mathbf n}_D,S_i)

against:

P(\mathbf a_{\mathrm{res}}\mid

\hat{\mathbf s},

\hat{\mathbf v},

\hat{\mathbf r}_E,

\mathbf B,

\text{operations}).

The winning explanation should be the one that organizes the data prospectively with the fewest unsupported adjustments.

---

Appendix C

Recommended Mission Sequence

Phase 1 — Commissioning

No anomalous-thrust claims.

Establish:

communications;

GNSS;

attitude determination;

thermal behavior;

charging behavior;

accelerometer performance;

orbit solution;

and payload health.

Phase 2 — Long Baseline

Keep payload discharged.

Characterize spacecraft non-gravitational acceleration.

Phase 3 — Sham

Operate electrically and thermally matched null states.

Phase 4 — Active

Introduce randomized $S_+$ intervals.

Phase 5 — Internal Vector Reversal

Introduce randomized $S_-$ intervals without changing external spacecraft attitude.

Phase 6 — Power-Off Test

S_+

\rightarrow

S_C

\rightarrow

S_D.

Phase 7 — Environmental Discrimination

Repeat across different:

magnetic fields;

solar geometries;

orbital positions;

plasma environments;

thermal conditions;

and drag conditions.

Phase 8 — Whole-Spacecraft Reversal

Rotate external spacecraft orientation and repeat selected states.

Phase 9 — Crossover

For a two-spacecraft mission, transfer the active condition between vehicles.

Phase 10 — Freeze Analysis

Orbit team locks residual analysis before receiving experimental-state labels.

Phase 11 — Unblind

Reveal state sequence.

Phase 12 — Replicate

Repeat on a separately constructed vehicle or by an independent team.

---

References

1. Buhler, C. R. Interview material supplied in NASA Chief: “We Just Built Antigravity Propulsion!” transcript, 2026. Reported experimental discussion includes vacuum testing, force reversal, whole-enclosure measurement, approximately two thousand experimental variations, spacecraft applications, and distinct powered and charged-unpowered regimes.

2. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “Kennedy's Swamp Works Celebrates a Decade of Discoveries.” NASA identifies Charles Buhler as lead scientist in the Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory and principal investigator for the Electrodynamic Dust Shield.

3. Swygert, J. (2026). Before the Residual: A General Boundary-First Framework for Scientific Measurement, Controls, Model Comparison, and Anomaly Claims.

4. Swygert, J. (2026). Inside Is Not Isolated: Faraday Boundaries, Channel-Selective Shielding, and the Relational Architecture of Experimental Control Through TSTOEAO.

5. Swygert, J. (2026). Latching Onto Space: Asymmetric Electrostatic Propulsion, Relational Momentum Accounting, and a TSTOEAO Substrate-Coupling Hypothesis.

6. Swygert, J. (2026). Pathways, Boundaries, and Phases: The Relational Expression of Reality.

7. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (2026). Smallsat Rideshare Program. Current published rideshare service describes dedicated smallsat rideshare opportunities and pricing beginning at $350,000 for 50 kg to sun-synchronous orbit.

8. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (2026). Transporter-17 Mission. SpaceX reports 81 payloads carried on the July 7, 2026 dedicated smallsat rideshare mission.

9. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2026). What Are SmallSats and CubeSats? NASA overview of standardized CubeSat and SmallSat architectures.

10. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute. (2026). Integration, Launch, Deployment, and Orbital Transport. Review of SmallSat dedicated and rideshare launch architectures and integration requirements.

11. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2026). NASA CubeSat to Speed Technology Testing in Orbit. NASA report describing a CubeSat technology demonstration carried aboard the July 2026 Transporter-17 commercial rideshare mission.

12. D'Amico, S., et al. (2018). Satellite Formation-Flying and Rendezvous. NASA Technical Reports Server. Discusses formation-flight architectures incorporating dual-frequency GPS receivers and high-accuracy accelerometers for precise orbit determination.

13. Federal Communications Commission. FAQ: Orbital Debris. Current FCC guidance describing the five-year post-mission disposal requirement applicable to covered spacecraft.

14. Federal Communications Commission. (2026). Space Modernization for the 21st Century. FCC material confirming continued certification requirements concerning the five-year deorbit rule.

15. Taylor, B. N., & Kuyatt, C. E. (1994). Guidelines for Evaluating and Expressing the Uncertainty of NIST Measurement Results. NIST Technical Note 1297.

16. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2019). Reproducibility and Replicability in Science. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. DOI: 10.17226/25303.

17. Munafò, M. R., et al. (2017). “A Manifesto for Reproducible Science.” Nature Human Behaviour, 1, 0021. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-016-0021.

18. Nosek, B. A., et al. (2018). “The Preregistration Revolution.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(11), 2600–2606. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1708274114.

19. Box, G. E. P. (1976). “Science and Statistics.” Journal of the American Statistical Association, 71(356), 791–799. DOI: 10.1080/01621459.1976.10480949.

20. Popper, K. R. (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.

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