The Slipspace COM Launcher is an experimental piece of technology recently invented by the UNSC.
A COM probe launched by an underground gauss accelerator and then a Shaw-Fujikawa Slipspace Drive creates a Slipspace rent in high orbit so that the COM probe goes through Slipspace like a "bullet" on an ultra-precise trajectory. It rips through the laws of known human physics and drops back into normal space at some very distant coordinates[1]. The probe actually navigates through Slipspace and traverses as far and as fast as any UNSC ship.
The technology would revolutionize long-distance communication. Far faster than conventional radio communication, if each ship were outfitted with such a device, messages could be delivered without requiring a ship to travel through space to manually give the message, especially when the ship is further delayed by the Cole Protocol.
Unfortunately, the cost to build a Shaw-Fujikawa ultra-precise low-mass launcher is comparable to a fleet of ships, and even a single probe is worth the capital city on an outlying colony. Therefore, there are only three known launchers: one on Earth, one on Reach, and a secret one on Onyx, though the Onyx and Reach launchers were likely destroyed in The Battle of Reach and The Battle of Onyx, respectively.
Sources
- ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx page 105.