There have been full scale nuclear thermal rocket engines built and tested on the ground since the 1960s. The US had the NERVA project. The attraction is that the ISP would be up to triple the ISP of ...

Nuclear thermal rockets already offer the highest Isp of launch-capable pure rocket propulsion systems, whereas the Supercharged Ejector Scramjet (SESJ, Ref. 8) and afterburning supersonic Rocket Fan ...

NASA is still shooting for the Red Planet, aiming to get astronauts there by the late 2030s or early 2040s. And it still views nuclear thermal propulsion as a key breakthrough that could make this ...

NASA wants to design and demonstrate a working nuclear thermal rocket by 2027. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson introduced the project on Tuesday (Jan. 24) during a presentation at the 2023 American ...

Engineers say a nuclear thermal rocket could cut astronauts' travel time to Mars from nine months to two. Credit: NASA NASA and the U.S. military plan to test a nuclear-powered rocket engine in ...

NASA's initiatives to pioneer next-generation space technologies are also hit hard in the White House's budget proposal. If the Trump administration gets its way, NASA's Space Technology Mission ...

The Pentagon is funding the world’s first nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) system for spacecraft. The goal is to send the rocket into low-Earth orbit in 2025.

A nuclear thermal rocket engine in development could one day transport humans to Mars. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a research arm of the US Department of Defense, and NASA are ...

Scientists have been investigating nuclear thermal propulsion since the 1960s. When the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application program was active, Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists ...

NASA will test a nuclear-powered rocket for space travel. The technology could speed up a manned trip to Mars from the current seven-month minimum to 45 days.

NASA said the last nuclear thermal rocket engine tests conducted by the U.S. took place more than 50 years ago under NASA’s Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application and Rover projects. Video ...

Research into nuclear thermal rocket engines by NASA began in 1959. A key program in the 1960s, called the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application, even sought to demonstrate the technology ...