Our sci-fi fantasies of colonizing in Mars may soon be a reality. SpaceX founder Elon Musk wants to send humans to Mars by 2024—only six years from now—via a giant spacecraft called the BFR, or the Big Falcon Rocket (also ...
Mini-Helicon Plasma Thruster
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Space Propulsion Laboratory are developing new plasma thrusters designed for satellite course corrections. Smaller, less expensive, and more energy efficient than traditional chemical rockets, the Mini-Helicon Plasma Thruster ...
Biofuel Rocket Tests Successful
The California based company Flometrics recently completed tests of biodiesel fuel in rockets originally designed for kerosene propulsion. Although the tests did not run the Rocketdyne LR-101 engine at full thrust, results showed a mere four percent degradation in performance ...
CECE Engine Passes Third Round of Tests
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, of West Palm Beach, Florida has successfully completed the third round of its Common Extensible Cryogenic Engine (CECE) testing for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). CECE is a new deep throttling engine designed to ...
Rocket Racing League
The Rocket Racing League (RRL) is a new futuristic sports league that was founded in 2005 by two-time Indianapolis 500 winning team partner Granger Whitelaw and X PRIZE Chairman and CEO Peter H. Diamandis, MD. The RRL combines speed racing ...
Fast Plasma Rocket Test
Ad Astra Rocket Company of Webster, Texas is nearly ready to test its Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) in space. A scale model of the plasma rocket will be put through its paces at the International Space Station (ISS) ...
Jet-Man is Here
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s Jet-man! – a.k.a. Yves Rossy, former Swiss army pilot, currently Swiss airline pilot, and inventor who developed a working model of a personal winged jetpack. Jet-man jumped from a small plane over ...
Ramjet Rocket Takes to the Skies
A unique air-breathing rocket built by students from the Technion in Haifa, Israel was launched from a test facility on early May this year. The sleek 3.7 meter (12 foot) Ramtech rocket took to the Israeli skies, reaching a speed ...