NASA recently awarded Ad Astra Rocket Company in Texas with 10 million dollars to continue the development of its Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine. This electromagnetic propulsion system has the capability to send a spacecraft to Mars in just 39 days, making it a part of NASA’s “12 Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnership”.
Ad Astra’s VASIMR rocket will travel ten times faster than today’s chemical rockets and use just one-tenth of the fuel. This system will reduce the travel time to Mars by several months, according to Franklin Chang Diaz, former MIT student, NASA astronaut and now CEO of Ad Astra.
Diaz describes VASIMR as “unlike any rocket you’ve seen in the past”, as it is a plasma rocket, not used for launching objects, but for propelling things that are already in orbit. This is what is known as “propulsion in space”.
The VASIMR system heats plasma, an electrically charged gas, to exceptionally high temperatures using radio waves. This system then provides thrust by channeling the hot plasma towards the back of the engine. According to Diaz, VASIMR will save thousands of gallons of rocket fuel and tens of millions of dollars annually.
This engine is truly amazing and can greatly aid in space exploration. In the end, it will help us reach the outer limits of our solar systems. It is truly one-of-a-kind.
In the following video, Diaz explains in detail the origins of space travel and how magnetoplasma rocket technology will revolutionize space travel and exploration.
