NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program recently selected six promising projects for additional funding and development, allowing them to graduate to the second stage of development.

Early studies suggest the pulsed plasma rocket (PPR) propulsion system could produce up to 100,000 N of thrust within a 5,000-second impulse. The concept has been developed from an earlier Pulsed ...

Desert Works Propulsion (DWP) has successfully completed initial testing of multiple prototype discharge and neutralizer ...

The NSWR is also fission-based and promising but less mature. Fusion-based propulsion (e.g., Daedalus) offers superior potential but awaits technological breakthroughs. Beamed power to ion drives or ...

Electric propulsion (EP) thrusters are expected to revolutionize space exploration, offering a fuel-efficient alternative to ...

Rosatom’s propulsion system uses a magnetic plasma accelerator, which it hopes will reduce space travel time. Mars is 140 million miles from Earth, meaning a 30-day journey would require an ...

What the research found. Cui specializes in building advanced computer simulations to study how plasma behaves in EP thruster plasma flows. These aren't just any simulations. They're powered by ...

Hidden patterns in electric propulsion plasma beams could help ensure the success of long-term space missions. Go faster, farther, more efficiently. That's the goal driving spacecraft propulsion ...

Scientists at Russia’s state-owned Rosatom corporation have developed a prototype of a plasma electric rocket engine that could reach Mars in just 30 to 60 days, Russian media reported.The ...

Some subteams will explore three different styles of electric propulsion including the Hall thruster, the applied field magnetoplasmadynamic thruster and the electron cyclotron resonance thruster.

Helicon Plasma Propulsion: A propulsion technique that utilises helicon waves to generate and sustain high-density plasma, which is subsequently accelerated within a magnetic nozzle.