(PhysOrg.com) -- Last Wednesday, the Ad Astra Rocket Company tested what is currently the most powerful plasma rocket in the world. As the Webster, Texas, company announced, the VASIMR VX-200 engine ran at 201 kilowatts in ...
If you tried to start a car that's been sitting in a garage for decades, you might not expect the engine to respond. But a set of thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft successfully fired up Wednesday after 37 years without ...
Space Exploration
Dec 2, 2017
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It has been believed that Hall thrusters, an efficient kind of electric propulsion widely used in orbit, must be large to produce a lot of thrust. Now, a new study from the University of Michigan suggests that smaller Hall ...
Space Exploration
Jan 24, 2023
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In a world first, an ESA-led team has built and fired an electric thruster to ingest scarce air molecules from the top of the atmosphere for propellant, opening the way to satellites flying in very low orbits for years on ...
Space Exploration
Mar 6, 2018
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Aero/Astro engineer Ken Hara is developing computer models to help make a little-known, but widely-used thruster engine more suitable for long-distance missions.
Space Exploration
Feb 21, 2020
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X3 is a powerful ion thruster that could one day propel humans beyond Earth. The thruster was successfully tested few months ago, and could be selected by NASA as a crucial component of propulsion system for future Mars missions.
Space Exploration
Feb 19, 2018
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When it comes time for NASA's Psyche spacecraft to power itself through deep space, it'll be more brain than brawn that does the work. Once the stuff of science fiction, the efficient and quiet power of electric propulsion ...
Space Exploration
Sep 20, 2021
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The growing interest in deep-space exploration has sparked the need for powerful long-lived rocket systems to drive spacecraft through the cosmos. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics ...
Plasma Physics
Dec 22, 2021
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817
The spacecraft engine that will help take humans to Mars may be based on a University of Michigan prototype.
Space Exploration
Feb 19, 2016
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A new type of rocket thruster that could take humankind to Mars and beyond has been proposed by a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).
Plasma Physics
Jan 28, 2021
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