Avi Loeb warns that 3I/ATLAS may be far more than just a comet—its survival and 'directional jets' hint at engineered ion ...

Chemical burn rockets can produce a lot of thrust, but only for a short period; this makes them ideal for lofting space vehicles out of Earth’s atmosphere and into outer space, but once they’ve ...

Monisha Ravisetti was a science writer at CNET. She covered climate change, space rockets, mathematical puzzles, dinosaur bones, black holes, supernovas, and sometimes, the drama of philosophical ...

Demand for electric propulsion is growing for space applications and the proposed technological solutions are evolving fast. Gridded Ion Technology allows a more efficient management of Xe, providing ...

BepiColombo, the joint ESA/JAXA spacecraft on a mission to Mercury, is now firing its thrusters for the first time in flight. On Sunday, BepiColombo carried out the first successful manoeuver using ...

Researchers at MIT have invented a small 3D printed thruster that emits a stream of pure ions. The thruster could be used as a low-cost and efficient propulsion source for miniature satellites in the ...

When it comes to space exploration, large vehicles get most of the press -- but a team on KickStarter wants to build an engine that could power nanoscale satellites on their own journeys of ...

NASA’s Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, will host a Media Opportunity to showcase an ion thruster prototype on Wed., Jan. 25 at 10 a.m. EST. This prototype was built under NASA’s Evolutionary Xenon ...

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has successfully run an ion thruster for 30,352h - four times its design life - in an effort to observe long-term wear effects. The engine, a spare from the Deep ...