39 Days to Mars: NASA Selects Companies to Develop Super-Fast Deep Space Engine

39 Days to Mars

NASA Selects Companies to Develop Super-Fast Deep Space Engine

 

Image © AD ASTRA

 

NASA announced it will partner with a variety of companies in new attempts to create more advanced space technology--including a new engine that could get humans to Mars in less than 40 days.

The Texas-based Ad Astra Rocket company, a member of NASA’s 12 Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextStep), boasted their VASIMR engine can get humans to Mars in 39 days. 

© AD ASTRA - A diagram showing how the VASIMR works

The engine rocketed to fame several years ago when it was revealed to cut a journey to Mars down from months to weeks. And even though it does require a nuclear power source, of which NASA has a shortage, after its successful test in 2013 the agency is considering employing it.

“We are thrilled by this announcement and proud to be joining forces with NASA in the final steps of the technology maturation,” said Dr Franklin Chang Diaz, Ad Astra’s Chairman and CEO, in a statement.

“We look forward to a very successful partnership as we jointly advance the technology to flight readiness.”

© AD ASTRA The VX 200 prototype VASIMR engine that could potentially be a part of the next Mars mission. 

Over a three year period, NASA will give Ad Astra around $10 million dollars to fully develop a new version of the VASIMR engine to be flight ready. With the successful demonstrations of their new VX-200-SS prototype, able to fire continuously for more than 100 hours, NASA will consider employing the propulsion system on their future excursion to Mars. 

NASA said in a statement that other commercial partners such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Dynetics Inc were in place to explore other possibilities on Mars. 

“Commercial partners were selected for their technical ability to mature key technologies and their commitment to the potential applications both for government and private sector uses,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters.

“This work ultimately will inform the strategy to move human presence further into the solar system.”

A Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), developed by Ad Astra, is an electromagnetic thruster for the propulsion of a spacecraft. It employs radio waves and magnetic fields to ionize and heat a propellant to generate a thrust for lift off.

Russia, US to Jointly Prepare Mars, Moon Flight Road Map – NASA

 

 

Image © NASA. Goddard Space Flight Center

Russia and the United States will work together on a roadmap to send humans to Mars and the Moon, according to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos and its US counterpart NASA will jointly hammer out a "road map" program on flights to Mars and the Moon, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said on Saturday.

Bolden, who is currently on a tour of Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, added that he had discussed joint efforts to send missions to the Red Planet with Roscosmos head Igor Komarov, including time frames and funding.

"Our area of cooperation will be Mars. We are discussing how best to use the resources, the finance, we are setting time frames and distributing efforts in order to avoid duplication," Bolden said.

The NASA chief also pledged to put US astronauts back on the Moon, saying that his country never abandoned its hope of a comeback.

Bolden added that in the future, NASA is planning "to attract more private developers to our joint exploration projects of the Moon and Mars," as well as initiate an ambitious program to harvest minerals from an asteroid.

NASA announced the extension of cooperation with its International Space Station partners, including Russia, for another nine years in February.

The US-Russia cooperation on the development of the international Space Station is under way despite the fact that NASA halted the majority of its joint activities with Russia over the Ukraine crisis in April 2014.

The last US mission to the Moon was Apollo 17; its astronauts returned to Earth from its closest neighbor on December 19, 1972.

© NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA Tests Flying Saucer With Sights Set on Mars in 2020

© Sputnik/ Ekaterina Shtukina Russia, US Aim to Create New Space Station After 2024 - Roscosmos Chief

From Sputnik News @ http://sputniknews.com/science/20150402/1020349394.html and http://sputniknews.com/world/20150328/1020132249.html

For more information about space migration see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/smi2le

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