The coming decades of space exploration hinge on a single, stubborn number: the 225 million kilometres between Earth and Mars. Chemical rockets, the workhorses of every space programme to date, take ...

Long before any spacecraft can attempt a faster journey to Mars, scientists must first solve one of space exploration’s biggest challenges: propulsion. Chemical rockets, used to launch spacecraft into ...

Those who watched The Space Between Us would surely have a fresh memory of the plane that Gary Oldman’s character flew from the ground into space. The plane probably used plasma jet engines and they ...

Plasma propulsion transforms an inert propellant – often hydrogen – into plasma, a superheated mix of ions and electrons.

In the relentless quest to make journeys to Mars shorter and safer, Russian scientists have recently turned heads with a bold claim: A plasma-based propulsion system could cut the Earth–Mars transit ...