Two United States based firms have entered into a partnership to advance high-power nuclear electric propulsion technology for faster space travel. Ad Astra Rocket Company (Ad Astra) and The Space ...

Ad Astra Rocket Company has spent over two decades developing the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), a highly efficient electric propulsion system. VASIMR operates by ...

However, this type of electric propulsion system requires a lot of energy, so the company has opted for a unique tie-up for a power plant that could solve that problem—a nuclear reactor.

Meanwhile, nuclear propulsion is literally the only way that a world power can project military might, as diesel-electric submarines and conventionally powered aircraft carriers lack the range ...

a nuclear microreactor. This technology will provide the sustained power needed for high-speed electric propulsion. “It will ...

On the nuclear electric propulsion side, the Air Force Research Laboratory contracted Lockheed Martin for the Joint Emergent Technology Supplying On-Orbit Nuclear High Power program to explore ...

Rendering of a 40-megawatt VASIMR Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) human mission to Mars. Credit: Ad Astra Rocket Co. HOUSTON—Strategic partners Ad Astra Rocket Co. and Space Nuclear Power Corp.

flight vehicle power engineering, and nuclear reactor engineering. At the HIT Plasma Propulsion Lab (HPPL), headed by Daren Yu, SESE researchers have been investigating electric propulsion ...

The plant was scheduled to begin shutting down in November, but its lifespan was extended in a last-minute legislative deal ...

The AEPS is a solar electric propulsion system that uses xenon as its propellant, much like existing ion engines. Where it differs is in the power output, which should allow it to work as the ...