Propulsion

Last Updated: October 15, 2022, 12:14 ISTRolls-Royce will showcase automation solutions at upcoming DefExpo. (Photo: Rolls-Royce)Rolls-Royce's Power Systems has a strong presence in India with its Pune-based MTU India business that supports the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast GuardRolls-Royce will showcase its MTU propulsion and automation solutions for the naval and land defense at the upcoming DefExpo to be held in Gandhinagar from October 18 to 22. The company will display its products including Series 8000 engines…

Boeing's troubled Starliner spaceship could be set for further delays after the company said Thursday it was working to solve problems with the propulsion system.The spaceship's latest launch date on August 4 was cancelled over propulsion issues, and it remains unclear when the next test flight will be scheduled."Over the past couple of days, our team has taken the necessary time to safely access and test the affected valves, and not let the launch window dictate our pace," said John Vollmer, Starliner vice president and…

In April, PPE engineers successfully tested the integration of Aerojet Rocketdyne’s thruster with Maxar’s power procession unit and Xenon Flow Controller. Credit: NASA One of the chief goals of NASA’s Artemis program is to establish the first long-term presence on the Moon. A critical part of the support infrastructure to make that happen is Gateway, a space outpost that will orbit the moon. Long-term, Gateway will serve as a staging point for deep space exploration. It is still a bit early in the development cycle for…

On 16 May, planetary scientist Laurie Leshin became director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), one of the world’s leading labs for robotic space science. Coming off the successful landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars, JPL is readying several more flagship missions for NASA, including a probe of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, and a complicated campaign to gather the rock samples collected by Perseverance and return them to Earth. Prior to JPL, Leshin spent 8 years as…

American aerospace giant Boeing's Starliner capsule was heading for the International Space Station Thursday, in a critical uncrewed test flight that followed years of failures and false starts.The spacecraft encountered some propulsion troubles early in its journey, with two thrusters responsible for orbital maneuvering failing for unclear reasons - but NASA officials said the mission remained on track.The Orbital Test Flight 2 (OFT-2) mission blasted off at 6:54 pm Eastern Time (4:24am IST) from the Kennedy Space Center…

With two successful flight tests in the bag, and just under US$2 million in seed funding, Florida company Undefined Technologies has unveiled the next generation of its "silent" commercial drone, which uses ionic propulsion instead of propellers. The new design is certainly a step up visually from previous efforts, but at the end of the day, an ionic propulsion system is going to look like an ionic propulsion system; by necessity it'll feature a large grid of electrodes with at least two layers, such that the top and…

The race for space exploration is unfolding at an unprecedented speed. Private companies have forayed into this sector with commercial ventures, and the US and China have set their eyes on landing humans on Mars by the next decade. While this ambition is laudable, it presents significant technological and logistical challenges. For instance, a mission to the Red Planet can only be launched once every 26 months, when Earth and Mars are at their closest point. Even then, it would take up to nine months to reach Mars from…