Rendering of VASIMR in flight around Mars. Credit: Ad Astra Rocket Company Propulsion technologies are the key to exploring the outer solar system, and many organizations have been working on novel ...

Human crews headed for Mars are still looking at journeys that last most of a year, long enough for radiation, boredom and mechanical risk to pile up. Nuclear propulsion promises to compress that ...

General Atomics and NASA have successfully tested a new type of nuclear thermal propulsion reactor fuel at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The new fuel could help power propulsion ...

Artificial intelligence is quietly reshaping how rockets fly, how spacecraft sip propellant and how engineers think about the ...

This satellite image shows the Nuclear Power Institute of China’s Site No. 1, also known as Base 909, in Mucheng Township, Sichuan Province, China, on July 5, 2023. (Planet Labs PBC) BANGKOK — China ...

From bicycles to rockets, learning through experience – whether human or machine – is shaping the future of space exploration.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New developments in nuclear thermal propulsion technologies may soon enable advanced space missions to the farthest reaches of the solar system. Leading these advances are researchers ...

If we achieve advanced nuclear, antimatter propulsion or other advance propulsion it would be possible to achieve near constant acceleration. This would enable travel times to Mars in the 3-8 day ...

Bangkok — China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing its first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, ...

The best, in fact, the only, candidate for this is the Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) system or nuclear rocket. First conceived of in 1945, this is a rocket that replaces burning chemical fuel with ...

The nuclear reactor of the fourth Suffren-class nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN), De Grasse (S638), was fired up for ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) Every year, companies and space agencies launch hundreds of rockets ...