The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, Alliant Techsystems and the Office of Naval Research have flown a hypersonic scramjet-powered vehicle from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virgina during a pre-dawn test Saturday December 10. This was the first-ever free flight of a scramjet-powe...
ESA has confirmed the principle of a new space thruster that may ultimately give much more thrust than today’s electric propulsion techniques. The concept is an ingenious one, inspired by the northern and southern aurorae, the glows in the sky that signal increased solar activity.
"Essen...
Since 2005, the Ad Astra Rocket Company of Webster, Texas, has been working to perfect a type of engine it calls VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket). It uses radio waves to heat argon gas, turning it into a hot plasma a state of matter in which electrons are no longer bound to atomi...