Engineers for NASA's Voyager mission are taking steps to help make sure both spacecraft, launched in 1977, continue to explore interstellar space for years to come.
Astronomy
Oct 20, 2023
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110
This tiny fingernail-length space thruster chip runs on the greenest propellant of all: water.
Space Exploration
Sep 14, 2023
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22
On Sept. 10, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly fired its ACS (attitude control system) thrusters to point itself toward Earth, putting it on course to release its sample capsule, carrying rocks and dust from asteroid Bennu, ...
Space Exploration
Sep 12, 2023
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9
ESA's Hera mission for planetary defense will perform a close-up survey of the Dimorphos asteroid in deep space. But first Hera needs to cross millions of kilometers of space to get there. That is the task of Hera's Propulsion ...
Space Exploration
Jun 30, 2023
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2
Currently about halfway through the Euclid simulations campaign, the key focus in the Main Control Room is the Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) and spacecraft commissioning.
Space Exploration
Jun 6, 2023
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13
New in-space propulsion techniques seem to be popping out of the woodwork. The level of innovation behind moving things around in space is astounding, and now a company from Japan has just hit a significant milestone. Pale ...
Space Exploration
Apr 3, 2023
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13
If the emergence of mechanically propelled weapons in prehistory is commonly perceived as one of the hallmarks of the advance of modern human populations into the European continent, the existence of archery has always been ...
Archaeology
Feb 22, 2023
2
701
Electric space propulsion systems use energized atoms to generate thrust. The high-speed beams of ions bump against the graphite surfaces of the thruster, eroding them a little more with each hit, and are the systems' primary ...
Space Exploration
Jan 31, 2023
1
239
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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3819
A research group has demonstrated that spontaneously excited plasma waves may be the solution to a long-associated problem with magnetic nozzle plasma thrusters, turning conventional thinking on its head.
Plasma Physics
Dec 6, 2022
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439
