– News of October 29, 2019 – The SABRE engine must be able to function as a turbojet engine, a ramjet engine or a rocket engine. There are still many technical challenges to solve in order to make this engine work. In particular, it needs a high-performance heat exchanger that can cool incoming air at…
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Millions of solar sails to bring down the temperature on Earth ? – News of September 15, 2019 – Imagine that in a few decades or perhaps a hundred years, global warming makes the Earth almost unbearable. Humanity is unable to recapture all the carbon emitted during centuries of industrialization. We can then imagine that…
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A Hall-effect thruster could equip the LOP-G – News of March 3, 2019 – The X3 ion thruster is a very interesting project from NASA’s Next Leap program. The goal of this program is to develop some of the technologies that will further explore the solar system. X3 is a Hall-effect thruster. This means that…
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The performance of nuclear thermal propulsion could be boosted – News of February 10, 2019 – Nuclear engines achieved advanced development as early as the 1960s. Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) provides thrust by reducing pressure of hydrogen through the heat of a nuclear reactor. This generates a strong thrust but it is insufficient to propel…
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What would happen if we had to face an incident involving an RTG ? – News of October 7, 2018 – The use of the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) in space still has a bright future. In 2013, the United States of America resumed the production of plutonium-238 for space use, for the first time…
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ESA develops an electric thruster powered by gas – News of March 6, 2018 – ESA announced yesterday on its website to have tested a new type of thrusters concept very interesting. Satellites placed in very low orbits, around 200 km above sea level, have to cope with the residual friction of the Earth’s atmosphere.…
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