NASA’s push for a new nuclear rocket engine is not just another upgrade to the hardware we strap to the bottom of spacecraft.

As the cloud cleared, Air Force bombers dropped in to gather air samples. Researchers hoped that the radioactive fallout ...

Space agencies are moving closer to a new era of rocket propulsion that could fundamentally change deep-space travel. Nuclear ...

A nuclear thermal propulsion engine could cut the travel time in half for future space explorers racing to the Red Planet.

The Space Age framed nuclear propulsion as a quiet rethinking of movement, distance, and endurance beyond Earth.

Going to the moon was one thing; going to Mars will be quite another. The distance alone is intimidating. While the moon is ...

MOSCOW, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- A nuclear-powered space engine prototype must be developed in Russia by 2030, and two gigafactories will be opened this year, Alexei Likhachev, director general of Russia's ...

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP), a technology studied for decades but never tested in orbit, is now approaching a critical milestone. While no nuclear-powered rocket is expected to fly this year, ...

Nuclear energy is often regarded as the cleanest power source on Earth. Unlike coal or gas, nuclear power plants don't release smoke and other contaminants into the air. They produce massive amounts ...

I’ve grown up with rockets that burn chemical fuel, but NASA’s next big leap in propulsion could make those engines look as dated as steam trains. By turning to nuclear power in space, the agency is ...