The main benefit of an interstellar mission is to carry out in-situ measurements within a target star system. To allow for extended in-situ measurements, the spacecraft needs to be decelerated. One of ...

Other magnetic launching systems tend to use stronger magnets and shorter launch systems. The earth’s magnetic field is about 60 microtesla at the poles. The above image is the traditional space pier ...

Our nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, is just four light-years from Earth, and while that's pretty close in the grand scheme of things, we can't just pop over to borrow some milk. With our ...

We’ve found quite a few planets in our galactic neighborhood that look like they might be habitable. But if these worlds don’t have any life, should we seed them with life from our own planet? The ...

Imagine a place like our solar system. A place with a ‘central’ star orbited by planets but light years away. There might be a planet there with water and living organisms. Now imagine if you could ...

With a miniaturized space probe capable of being accelerated to a quarter of the speed of light, we could reach Alpha Centauri, our nearest star, in 20 to 50 years. However, without a mechanism to ...