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NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission is scheduled to launch on July 22, 2021. It's a demonstration mission to study the use of kinetic impact to deflect an asteroid. It'll head for the tiny binary asteroid system called Didymos, (or 65803 Didymos.) This double asteroid system poses no threat to Earth. The larger of the pair, named Didymos A, is about 780 meters (2560 ft.) in diameter, while the smaller one, Didymos B, is only about 160 meters (535 ft.) DART will crash itself into the Didymos B. It's close to the typical size of an asteroid that threatens...

The European Space Agency (ESA) have successfully tested a new engine, called the Dual-Stage 4-Grid (DS4G) ion thruster, claimed to be a jump forward in the form of electric propulsion which accelerates a beam of positively charged particles (ions) as propulsion using an electric field. The new engine is ten times more fuel efficient than their current form of electric propulsion, as used on ESA's Moon probe SMART-1. Now on L2STS-116: FD2 to FD14 MMT/MER - Docs, video, live info - EXTENSIVEESA: IXV - Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle + Vega launcher (55meg)In cooperation with the Australian National University, ESA believe the...

BERLIN (AP) - Europe's first mission to the moon is due to crash-land in a cloud of dust and rock Sunday, ending a three-year voyage that gathered data about the lunar surface and tested a new engine intended to propel future spacecraft to Mercury and other planets. The European Space Agency's SMART-1 should hit its target on a volcanic plain called the Lake of Excellence at 0541GMT, orbiting lower and lower as it makes its final approach at 2 kilometers per second, or 7,200 kilometers per hour (4,475 mph). Observatories on Earth will try to capture images of the impact...

A new ion engine that promises to propel spacecraft faster and further is four times more fuel efficient than the best available, scientists say. They say the results of recent tests suggest the engine, the Dual Stage Four Grid Thruster (DS4G), would reduce the time for craft to reach Mars or Pluto and beyond. Dr Orson Sutherland and team at the Australian National University's Space Plasma Power and Propulsion Group designed and built the engine with the European Space Agency (ESA). Sutherland says laboratory tests show the DS4G it is four times more fuel efficient than the best ion engines...

A new design for an ion engine promises up to 10 times the fuel-efficiency of existing electric propulsion engines, according to tests by the European Space Agency. The new thruster could be used to propel craft into interstellar space, or to power a crewed mission to Mars, ESA says. Ion engines work by using an electric field to accelerate a beam of positively charged particles – ions – away from the spacecraft, thereby providing propulsion. Existing models, such as the engine used in ESA’s Moon mission, SMART-1, extract the ions from a reservoir and expel them in a single process.

The European Space Agency has confirmed the principle of a new space thruster that may ultimately give much more thrust than today’s electric propulsion techniques. The concept is an ingenious one, inspired by the northern and southern aurorae, the glows in the sky that signal increased solar activity. “Essentially the concept exploits a natural phenomenon we see taking place in space,” says Dr Roger Walker of ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team. "When the solar wind, a ‘plasma’ of electrified gas released by the Sun, hits the magnetic field of the Earth, it creates a boundary consisting of two plasma layers. Each...

Nuclear power would allow missions to orbit - not merely fly by The US space agency (Nasa) is progressing with ambitious plans to explore the Solar System using nuclear power. Their hope, eventually, is to use electricity generated by nuclear power to propel a space probe and power its instruments on a voyage to the icy moons of Jupiter, satellites that just possibly might harbour life beneath their ice. Before then, nuclear technology could be proved with a less ambitious mission, perhaps a nuclear-powered probe to the Moon. As long ago as 1907, just two years after Einstein discovered his...

A EUROPEAN spacecraft powered by a Star Trek-style thruster has flown through a “lunar gateway” that puts it on course to reach the Moon on Monday. Smart-1 has fired its revolutionary ion engine to reach a point at which it can be captured by the Moon’s gravity. Yesterday morning the washing machine-sized probe cleared the “Lagrangian point” at which the gravity of the Earth and the Moon are in perfect balance. The craft is now assured of orbiting the Moon. “Smart-1 has passed through the gateway to the Moon,” said Bernard Foing, of the European Space Agency (ESA), the probe’s...

NASA Successfully Tests Ion Engine NASA's Project Prometheus recently reached an important milestone with the first successful test of an engine that could lead to revolutionary propulsion capabilities for space exploration missions throughout the solar system and beyond. The test involved a High Power Electric Propulsion (HiPEP) ion engine. The event marked the first in a series of performance tests to demonstrate new high-velocity and high- power thrust needed for use in nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) applications. "The initial test went extremely well," said Dr. John Foster, the primary investigator of the HiPEP ion engine at NASA's Glenn Research...