Spacecraft rocket engines come in a variety of forms and use a variety of fuels, but most rely on chemical reactions to blast propellants out of a nozzle, with the reaction force driving the ...

A form of electric propulsion known as Hall thrusters — a type of ion thruster — may actually pack more bang for the buck than expected. Hall thrusters have conventionally been used to adjust the ...

Somewhere inside NASA’s sprawling nuclear propulsion pipeline, a spacecraft called SR-1 Freedom is being designed to do ...

Space is unforgiving about inefficiency. Every kilogram launched costs somewhere between $2,000 and $10,000 depending on the vehicle – and that’s on a good day with a favorable contract. In that ...

Most people are probably familiar with iodine through its role as a disinfectant. But if you stayed awake through high school chemistry, then you may have seen a demonstration where powdered iodine ...

CLEVELAND — A small robotic surveyor arrives to explore a near-Earth asteroid. Another robotic spacecraft is returning to Earth with a pristine comet surface sample. Meanwhile, a robotic explorer is ...

You don’t see many ionic thrusters out in the world these days. The high-voltage devices are interesting pieces of technology, but they aren’t all that relevant to our normal lives. They’re gradually ...

Space missions already use electric propulsion devices, where electromagnetic fields are utilized to generate the thrust of spacecraft. One such electrodeless device, which harnesses radio frequency ...

Helicon plasma propulsion is emerging as a promising branch of electric space propulsion, employing helicon waves to generate high‐density plasmas which are then accelerated through a magnetic nozzle.