Nasa is to test a giant hypersonic slingshot as a potentially revolutionary new way to hurl satellites into space,

The massive device, taller than the Statue of Liberty, is already in place in the New Mexico desert and will be tried out by the space agency later this year.

It consists of a 300ft wide steel vacuum chamber, turned on its side, with an exit pipe pointed at the sky.

Observers have described it as looking, from the outside, like a giant yo-yo.

Inside, an object is attached to a carbon-fiber tether and flung around in circles.

Because it is being spun in a vacuum the object on the end of the tether can be accelerated to thousands of miles per hour, before being released through the pipe.

The 1,000-ton steel, electric-powered centrifuge was built and is operated by a private company, SpinLaunch, which has signed a test deal with Nasa under the Space Act.

A 10ft-long Nasa test vehicle, shaped like a torpedo, will be catapulted skyward before deploying a parachute, landing, and then being recovered and analysed.

Jonathan Yaney, founder of SpinLaunch said it was a “fundamentally new way to access space” and “we greatly appreciate NASA’s continued interest and support.”

Mr Yaney has been working on his centrifuge since 2014 and it has been called the space industry’s “best kept secret”.

He said: “We basically asked the question, ‘Is there a way to get to space without a rocket?’

“It’s a radically different way to accelerate projectiles and launch vehicles to hypersonic speeds.”