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DARPA, NASA unveil major propulsion breakthroughs for future missions

Stealth drone debut: DARPA’s XRQ-73 hybrid-electric UAV flew in April, aiming for quieter, harder-to-detect surveillance missions under the SHEPARD program. Record electric thruster: NASA tested a ...
New Atlas

NASA's mega ion engine clears a fiery test on the road to Mars

The first human Mars explorers won’t have it easy. Every additional day in deep space will increase their exposure to deadly ...
Ars Technica

Here is NASA’s plan for nuking Gateway and sending it to Mars

NASA’s announcement Tuesday that it will “pause” work on a lunar space station and focus on building a surface base on the Moon was no big surprise to anyone paying attention to the Trump ...
SpaceNews

DARPA says decreasing launch costs, new analysis led it to cancel DRACO nuclear propulsion project

WASHINGTON — A DARPA official said the agency canceled a space nuclear propulsion project it was jointly developing with NASA in part because the effort was overtaken by advances in more conventional ...
Yahoo

NASA and General Atomics test nuclear fuel for future moon and Mars missions

The first humans to Mars might someday ride a rocket propelled by a nuclear reactor to their destination. But before that can happen, nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) technologies still have quite a ...
National Security Journal on MSN

NASA’s X-43D was designed to fly at Mach 15 — engineers warned the aircraft would have literally melted in flight

NASA’s X-43D was designed to fly at speeds approaching Mach 15 — roughly 11,000 miles per hour — using a hydrogen-fueled ...
Ars Technica

NASA just swapped a 10-year-old Artemis II engine with one nearly twice its age

A couple of weeks ago, ground teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida removed one of the four main engines from the Space Launch System rocket slated to send four astronauts on a voyage around ...
Aviation Week

Proposed NASA Budget Zeros Out Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Tech

Lockheed Martin and partner BWX Technologies were on contract to develop a nuclear thermal rocket through the DARPA-NASA DRACO program. Credit: Lockheed Martin NASA’s proposed fiscal 2026 budget would ...
ExtremeTech

Nuclear Rocket Fuel Test Success Paves the Way for Faster Space Travel

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ExtremeTech

NASA, DARPA collaborating on Deep Web search to analyze spacecraft data

Researchers at JPL have joined with DARPA to develop Deep Web search tools for mining vast data stores from NASA spacecraft and other science-related objectives. Share on Facebook (opens in a new ...