NASA announced successful tests of a new propulsion system designed for deep space travel and could be used by astronauts for future trips to the distant planet of Mars.
The tests come as the space agency is gearing up for a return trip to the moon with the Artemis mission. Authorities said that NASA researchers successfully developed and tested a new type of supersonic rocket engine known as a rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE).
NASA's Rocket Propulsion System Test
The new rocket engine can generate thrust with detonation, where a supersonic exothermic front accelerates, which in turn produces thrust. This is similar to how a shockwave travels through our planet's atmosphere after something like a bomb explodes.
The space agency said the new design uses less fuel and provides much more thrust than currently available propulsion systems. NASA added that the RDRE could be used to power human landers and crewed missions that seek to travel to the moon, Mars, and deep space, as per Gizmodo.
The test of NASA's RDRE featured 3D-printed parts made out of a copper alloy known as GRCop-42 that the space agency developed. During the test, the new propulsion system could withstand the high temperatures and pressures generated by the detonation process, producing more than 4,000 pounds of thrust for nearly a minute.
The space agency said the new rocket design could move more mass into deep space while requiring less fuel. This means that it could make space travel even more sustainable.
With the success of the recent tests, NASA engineers will now work on a fully reusable 10,000-pound RDRE to compare its performance to traditional liquid rocket engines.
Sending Astronauts to Mars
Engineers from the space agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and primary collaborator IN Space LLC in West Lafayette, Indiana, confirmed the tests of the RDRE. According to NASA, they noted that the engine was fired more than a dozen times and had a total duration of nearly 10 minutes.
NASA also noted that the new propulsion system achieved other milestones during the test, including the successful performance of both deep throttling and internal ignition. The test results bring the newly-developed system closer to being used in future spacecraft.
The situation comes as NASA is also planning to join a military program to develop nuclear thermal propulsion systems. In an influential report published in 2021, the space agency concluded that its only chance to put humans on Mars was using nuclear propulsion.
This type of propulsion involves a rocket engine in which a nuclear reactor is in place of the combustion chamber and is responsible for burning liquid hydrogen used as fuel. This process uses less fuel than typical chemical propulsion, often less than 500 metric tons, to reach Mars.
Roughly three years ago, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) showed its intent to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion system. Earlier this week, NASA announced that it was partnering with DARPA to join the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) project, said ARSTechnica.
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