Sacramento, Calif.-based Aerojet said June 29 that a xenon ion engine developed in partnership with NASA’s Glenn Research Center has surpassed 30,000 hours of operation in ground tests at the ...

Aerojet, a GenCorp (NYSE:GY) company, announced today that its innovative ion propulsion engine – built in partnership between Aerojet and NASA’s Glenn Research Center – has completed a test series ...

Aerojet has completed manufacture and integration testing of a xenon propellant management system (PMS) for phase one of NASA's evolutionary xenon thruster (NEXT) next-generation ion engine ...

Engineers assemble the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) before it begins its 5.5-year endurance test. The thruster generates small amounts of thrust using xenon gas that is ionized and ...

Today, we use ion thrusters to correct satellite orbits and visit asteroids. In 100 years, we might be using them to propel massive generation ships that send colonists to a different part of the ...

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Researchers from the Harbin Institute of Technology in China have created a new inlet design for Cylindrical shaped Hall thrusters (CHTs) that may significantly increase the thrust and allows ...

Monisha Ravisetti was a science writer at CNET. She covered climate change, space rockets, mathematical puzzles, dinosaur bones, black holes, supernovas, and sometimes, the drama of philosophical ...

Researchers just test-fired a new type of ion thruster that “breathes” air, and one day, it could help humanity reach Mars and beyond. Better propulsion systems are key to advancing our space ...

The Dawn mission to the asteroid belt passed a critical test last weekend, exercising its gentle, yet reliable, ion-propulsion system to accelerate its mission to two destinations during an eight-year ...

While ion thrusters are a promising propulsion method for future spacecraft, their working life is limited by the amount of propellant they can carry. Now, scientists at ESA and Italian space company ...