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 ...

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 ...

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 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

LMT's DRACO project cut by budget slashes, but its deep NASA ties and NEP work keep its space ambitions alive.

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 ...

Nuclear thermal propulsion, or NTP, is a potentially game-changing technology for NASA's crewed missions to Mars in the 2040 timeframe. NTP engines use a nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen to ultra ...

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) has stood as a promising potential alternative propulsion technology for decades. Chemical rockets have begun to reach their theoretical maximum efficiency, and ...

First conceived of in 1945, this is a rocket that replaces burning chemical fuel with a nuclear reactor that is used to heat up a propellant. This propellant is most likely hydrogen, though ...