At the core of NASA’s Artemis mission is Gateway, a lunar outpost that demands advanced power and propulsion. Aviation Week spoke with Chris Coker about how the company’s commercial spacecraft heritage is driving development of the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE), which will serve as Gateway’s electric power source and maneuvering system.

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) Every year, companies and space agencies launch hundreds of rockets into space – and that number is set to grow ...

Space agencies are moving closer to a new era of rocket propulsion that could fundamentally change deep-space travel. Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP), a technology studied for decades but never tested in orbit, is now approaching a critical milestone.

This study will identify primary technical and programmatic challenges, merits, and risks for developing and demonstrating space nuclear propulsion technologies of interest to future exploration missions. The committee will also determine the key ...

Physicists are quietly rewriting the rulebook for how we might cross the gulf between stars, not by bolting bigger rockets to launch pads but by probing the strange limits of quantum theory. A new generation of experiments suggests that a subtle “loophole” in quantum physics could let future spacecraft bend time,