According to DARPA, DRACO’s nuclear thermal propulsion system could enable rapid maneuver in space, which is difficult to perform with spacecraft powered by electric or chemical propulsion. While chemical systems provide a high thrust-to-weight ratio and electric systems offer high...
NASA is still shooting for the Red Planet, aiming to get astronauts there by the late 2030s or early 2040s. And it still viewsnuclear thermal propulsion as a key breakthroughthat could make this goal more attainable, by slashing the travel time to and from the Red Planet. Nuclear thermal ...
“NASA will work with our long-term partner, DARPA, to develop and demonstrate advanced nuclear thermal propulsion technology as soon as 2027. With the help of this new technology, astronauts could journey to and from deep space faster than ever – a major capability to prepare for crewed miss...
DARPA Is Taking a Big Step Toward Nuclear Space PropulsionJuly 27, 2023 Four years from now, if all goes well, a nuclear-powered rocket engine will launch into space for the first time. The rocket itself will be conventional, but the payload boosted into orbit will be a different matter....
The goal of the program is deceptively simple: Use a nuclear thermal propulsion system to power a spacecraft beyond low Earth orbit. The Pentagon's research and development agency says a nuclear powered spacecraft has the potential to achieve both the high power of an chemical-based propulsion ...
NASA and DARPA announced they awarded Lockheed Martin and BWX Technologies to build and develop a nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) engine.
DARPA But there is good reason to believe that robots can be used in this way. In recent years, alaser-shooting snake robothas been used to help decommission a nuclear power plant in Europe, the U.S. Army has sought out3,000 battlefield-ready scorpion robotsfor bomb disposal, and drones...