Transport and Energy Module: Russia’s new NEP Tug
Hello, and welcome back to Beyond NERVA! Today’s blog post is a special one, spurred on by the announcement recently about the Transport and Energy Module, Russia’s new nuclear electric space tug! Because of the extra post, the next post on liquid fueled NTRs will come out on Monday or Tuesday next week. This is […]
Nuclear Electric Propulsion History Part 1: The Soviet Astronuclear Program
Hello, and welcome back to Beyond NERVA, where we’re getting back into issues directly related to nuclear power in space, rather than how that power is used (as we’ve examined in our last three blog posts on electric propulsion)! However, the new Electric Propulsion page is up on the website, including a summary of all […]
Electric Propulsion Part 2: Electrostatic Propulsion
Hello, and welcome back to Beyond NERVA! Today, we finish our look at electric propulsion systems by looking at electrostatic propulsion. This is easily the most common form of in-space electric propulsion system, and as we saw in our History of Electric Propulsion post, it’s also the first that was developed. I apologize about how […]
Electric Propulsion Part 1: Thermal and Magnetoplasmadynamic Thrusters
Hello, and welcome back to Beyond NERVA! My apologies for the delay in this post, electric propulsion is not one of my strong points, so I spent a lot of extra time on research and in discussion with people who are more knowledgeable than I am on this subject. Special thanks to both Roland A. […]
Electric Propulsion: The Oldest “Futuristic” Propulsion Possibility
Hello, and welcome back to Beyond NERVA. Today, we are looking at a very popular topic, but one that doesn’t necessarily require nuclear power: electric propulsion. However, it IS an area that nuclear power plants are often tied to, because the amount of thrust available is highly dependent on the amount of power available for […]