There have been off and on nuclear thermal rockets program since the 1960s. In 2022, DARPA announced its goal of conducting an in-space flight demonstration of nuclear thermal propulsion in 2026. In ...

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

A nuclear thermal rocket could potentially achieve double or triple the Delta-V of a SpaceX Starship with just the full orbital refueling. But to move large payloads of 100-200 tons, then the thrust ...

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 ...

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 ...

As we set our sights on crewed Mars missions, we're going to have to consider some next-level rocket engines. One idea with a lot of potential is nuclear thermal propulsion.

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 ...

Nuclear thermal propulsion systems have roughly twice the specific impulse of chemical rockets, which means they could cut the travel time by a factor of 2. Nuclear thermal propulsion history ...

NASA and the DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO, program intends to use this high-assay, low-enriched uranium fuel in its nuclear thermal propulsion engine. The ...

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 ...

NASA and the DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO, program intends to use this high-assay, low-enriched uranium fuel in its nuclear thermal propulsion engine. The ...