South Korea’s K-RadCube satellite will require onboard propulsion to raise its orbit after deployment on Artemis 2. Credit: KASA SALT LAKE CITY — A novel propulsion system will be called upon to ...

I’ve grown up with rockets that burn chemical fuel, but NASA’s next big leap in propulsion could make those engines look as dated as steam trains. By turning to nuclear power in space, the agency is ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: Stirling engines, which have been around for centuries, leverage temperature differentials in a gas to do light mechanical work. A new study ...

Engineers have built a modern Stirling engine that quietly turns the cold of outer space into steady mechanical power, using the night sky as a heat sink instead of a fuel tank. By radiating heat away ...