DARPA taps Lockheed Martin to build nuclear deep space rocket

DRACO is a demonstrator for a nuclear-powered space tug

NASA hears ‘heartbeat’ signal from Voyager 2 probe a week after losing contact

The first crewed mission to Mars may get there and back a bit faster and safer if a contract DARPA has awarded to Lockheed Martin bears fruit. The contract is to rapidly advance and fabricate a nuclear thermal rocket engine scheduled to fly by 2027 for cislunar and deep space missions.

In a remarkably short time, humanity has gone from learning how to fly a heavier-than-air craft to sending robotic probes into interstellar space. The surprising thing is that the chemical rocket engines used then, and are still used now, reached the edge of their theoretical limits in 1942, just as they made their first successful flights.

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