Related topics: nasa

What are CubeSats?

One of the defining characteristics of the modern era of space exploration is the open nature of it. In the past, space was a frontier that was accessible only to two federal space agencies – NASA and the Soviet space program. ...

Traveling to Mars with immortal plasma rockets

Nearly 50 years after landing on the moon, mankind has now set its sights on sending the first humans to Mars. The moon trip took three days; a Mars trip will likely take most of a year. The difference is in more than just ...

Image: T6 ion thruster firing

The eerie blue exhaust trail of an ion thruster during a test firing. A quartet of these highly efficient T6 thrusters is being installed on ESA's BepiColombo spacecraft to Mercury at ESA's ESTEC Test Centre in Noordwijk, ...

Performance degradation mechanism of a helicon plasma thruster

A part of the performance degradation mechanism of the advanced, electrodeless, helicon plasma thruster with a magnetic nozzle, has been revealed by the research group of Dr. Kazunori Takahashi and Prof. Akira Ando at Tohoku ...

Image: Solar Electric Propulsion engine's ionizing Hall thruster

Engineers at NASA's Glenn Research Center are advancing the propulsion system that will propel the first ever mission to redirect an asteroid for astronauts to explore in the 2020s. NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission will ...

Comet-chasing probe closes in on target

A comet-chasing spacecraft on a mission to land on a fizzing ball of ice and dust later this year has begun a crucial slow-down maneuver to avoid flying past its target.

MIT lab developing ion microthrusters for cubesats

(Phys.org) —The MIT News Office is reporting that the University's Space Power and Propulsion Laboratory (headed by Paulo Lozano) is seeing progress with micro-sized thruster design to power the next generation of self-propelled ...

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