Nasa

The ‘Urban Air Mobility’ initiative could also include small package delivery drones

NASA has conducted successful initial tests of a small-scale nuclear fission system designed to power a long-duration manned mission to Mars. Officials from the agency have said a full-power run of the Kilopower project is scheduled for March. Its purpose is to enable robotic missions and potentially develop colonies in space, which requires a power […]

Recent increases in global methane levels are not necessarily due to rising greenhouse gas emissions. It could instead be due to changes in how long methane remains in the atmosphere after it is emitted, according to a new NASA and US Department of Energy-funded study. Methane is a colourless and odourless gas and the second […]

NASA has confirmed biofuels can reduce jet engine pollution by as much as 70%. Its research concluded particle emissions from plane exhausts can be greatly decreased by using a 50:50 blend of aviation fuel and a renewable alternative produced from plant oil. As well as cutting Carbon Dioxide emissions, the mix also saw a significant […]

NASA has launched a research programme to build electric planes. It will test a new propulsion technology using an experimental airplane called X-57 and nicknamed “Maxwell”. Maxwell’s original wing and two gas-fuelled piston engines will be replaced with a long, skinny wing embedded with 14 electric motors. Engineers hope to achieve a five-time reduction in the energy required […]

NASA has revealed how water storage on land has affected the rate of rise in sea levels. That’s due to climate, its report stated. While ice sheets and glaciers are melting, changes in weather in the past decade have caused Earth’s continents to soak up and store an extra 3.2 trillion tons of water in soils, […]

Global temperatures in 2015 have set a new record for the hottest year since 1880, according to NASA’s report. They shattered the previous record set in 2014 by 0.13°C degrees, the institution stated. The planet’s average surface temperature has risen around 1°C since the late 19th century, it added. That’s due to a change largely […]

One of NASA’s spacecraft has broken the record for the most distance travelled using solar power. The milestone occurred on Wednesday this week when Juno, worth $1.1 billion (£0.76bn), was around 493 million miles from the sun. Launched in 2011, Juno was the first solar-powered spacecraft designed to operate at such a great distance from […]

Airlines could save billions of dollars in the near future as a result of green technologies. Developed by NASA’s aeronautics researchers in the past six years, they claim the new technologies could cut airline fuel use in half, pollution by 75% and noise to nearly one-eighth of today’s levels. Around $400 million (£273m) was invested […]

A specialised fuel to power NASA’s future deep space missions has been produced. Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee completed the first production of 50 grams of ‘plutonium-238’ – roughly the mass of a golf ball – in nearly 30 years. It comes two years after the […]