If you’re familiar with advancements in spacecraft engine development, then you’ve undoubtedly heard of something known as the ion drive engine. In essence, the ion drive engine is a solid-state ...

Astra Space says it’s made a deal with Tukwila, Wash.-based LeoStella to provide multiple electric propulsion systems for LeoStella’s small satellites, with deliveries due to begin later this year.

Ion thrusters are an amazing spacecraft propulsion technology, providing very high efficiency with relatively little fuel. Yet getting one to produce more thrust than that required to lift a sheet of ...

Last week, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that they’d conducted a successful flight test of an aircraft with a sci-fi-sounding propulsion system called an ion drive ...

NASA is launching a spacecraft destined to slam into an asteroid as part of its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission tonight, from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Its purpose ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. NASA's mission DART will test our ability to redirect an asteroid by quite literally crashing ...

The BepiColombo Mercury probe is a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The probe is intended to study Mercury's magnetic field, ...

When it comes to space exploration, large vehicles get most of the press -- but a team on KickStarter wants to build an engine that could power nanoscale satellites on their own journeys of ...

Scientists at the European Space Agency have created a miniaturized ion thruster that’s capable of keeping a satellite steady while in Earth’s orbit. Liquid metal forming on a tiny spiked crown made ...