EL SEGUNDO, Calif., June 11, 2021 (Phase Four PR) — Phase Four, the creator of the radio-frequency thruster for satellite propulsion, announced today that it has closed a Series B investment round of $26 million. The round was led by New Science Ventures LLC (“NSV”), a leading venture capital firm focused on building companies that leverage breakthrough science to create extraordinary value.
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A test firing of Europe’s Helicon Plasma Thruster, developed with ESA by SENER in Spain. This compact, electrodeless and low voltage design is ideal for the propulsion of small satellites, including maintaining the formation of large orbital constellations.
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NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase I Award
Amount: $125,000
Pulsed Plasma Rocket: Shielded, Fast Transits for Humans to Mars
Steven Howe
Howe Industries LLC
Development of a space faring civilization will depend on the ability to move cargo efficiently and humans rapidly. Due to the large distances involved in space travel, the ships must reach a high velocity for reasonable mission transit times. Thus, propulsion systems with high specific impulse (Isp) AND high thrust are required.
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The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program has made the following awards for 2020.
Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay
Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT) on the Far-Side of the Moon
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, CA
John Christian
StarNAV: An Architecture for Autonomous Spacecraft Navigation by the Relativistic Perturbation of Starlight
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, NY
AD ASTRA PRESS RELEASE
January 15, 2009
Ad Astra Rocket Company, a world leader in plasma rockets and MEI Technologies, Inc., a nationwide aerospace, defense and technology company, have joined forces creating a strategic alliance in support of Ad Astra’s Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR®) rocket development.
A new type of plasma thruster (helicon double layer) invented by a physicist from the Australian National University (ANU) some years ago will be tested in a prototype satellite to be launched into space over the next four years . This is the first propellant propellant of this type and it will be the first time a spacecraft will use this type of propellant.
Aust-made plasma thruster facing space test
ABC News
A revolutionary Australian National University-developed propulsion system will be the first of its kind to be tested in space.
The Efficient Future of Deep-Space Travel – Electric Rockets
Scientific American
Alone amid the cosmic blackness, NASA’s Dawn space probe speeds beyond the orbit of Mars toward the asteroid belt. Launched to search for insights into the birth of the solar system, the robotic spacecraft is on its way to study the asteroids Vesta and Ceres, two of the largest remnants of the planetary embryos that collided and combined some 4.57 billion years ago to form today’s planets.
