I’ve grown up with rockets that burn chemical fuel, but NASA’s next big leap in propulsion could make those engines look as dated as steam trains. By turning to nuclear power in space, the agency is ...

The best, in fact, the only, candidate for this is the Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) system or nuclear rocket. First conceived of in 1945, this is a rocket that replaces burning chemical fuel with ...

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) just hit a massive milestone that could alter the future of space exploration. The company has successfully trialed a nuclear fuel that could one day ...

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Mars has always felt like a distant neighbor, reachable only after a long, risky cruise through deep space. Now engineers inside NASA are sketching a very different future, one where a nuclear powered ...

The USA's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has finalised an agreement with Lockheed Martin to begin work on the fabrication and design of an experimental nuclear thermal rocket and its engine ...

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 ...

A new kind of space engine could change how we explore the solar system, and it's powered by the same force that lights up the stars. A British startup called Pulsar Fusion is working on a nuclear ...

Scientists have developed a new form of nuclear propulsion that they claim could slash mission times to Mars and enable voyages to the farthest reaches of the solar system. A team from Ohio State ...

Forward-looking: Scientists have long envisioned nuclear electric propulsion as a transformative technology for unlocking the potential of solar system exploration. Now, two companies making steady ...