Interplanetary trips could be much faster – and hotter.
The British Startup Pulsar Fusion has presented “Sunbird” today, a nuclear fusion-powered rocket concept that could halve the time it takes to drive through our solar system-and maybe beyond.
Models for machine learning show that the rocket may be able to drive a spaceship with a mass of around 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) to Pluto in four years – less than half the time when NASA needed it New horizons Mission, which was driven by regular ion contractors. Earth to Mars? Four months. Earth to Saturn? Two years.
Instead of starting every time from the earth, several sun birds in the orbit would be “docked” in orbit with low earth, ready to attach themselves to space vehicles and to drive them deeper into the cosmos.
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Sunbird would be equipped with a duel direct fusion drive – a compact nuclear fusion engine that could provide both thrust and electrical power for space vehicles.
Pulsar started building the engine in 2023 at one location in Milton KeynesEngland. Static tests are scheduled to begin in 2025, followed by an “in Orbit demonstration” (iodine) of the nuclear technology components in 2027, the company said. When burning, the engine can temporarily become the hottest place in the solar system and generate the exhaust gas speeds of more than 500,000 km/h (804,672 km/h).
From Great Britain to Mars
Pulsar was founded in 2011 and spent over a decade with fusion research. The company has recently developed two more products in parallel: An electric hall effect electros radiation for space vehicles and a hybrid rocket engine of the second stage.
“Pulsar has made a reputation in this industry to deliver real technologies – not just talking about it, ”said founder and CEO Richard Dinan. “We recently not one, but two of the largest chambers for space drive tests in Great Britain, if not all over Europe – and we have ambitious plans to grow from here.”
While Pulsar's goal of building and testing a fusion reactor in space in just three years is certainly ambitious, progress in AI could help. The company has teamed up with the Princeton satellite systems based in the USA to predict how plasma behaves under electromagnetic restriction. The simulations for machine learning lead the design of the rocket engine.
In 2022 Pulsar secured the financing of the financing of the The British Space Agency for the development of a drive system for nuclear division as well as the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Center and Cambridge University.
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