Portal’s heat exchanger thruster, known as Flare, fires up during a test in a vacuum chamber. (Portal Space Systems Photo) Bothell, Wash.-based Portal Space Systems says it has successfully tested its ...

A prototype ion engine that uses lithium vapor as a propellant has aced its first tests, achieving 25 times more power than ...

BROOMFIELD, Colo., August 11, 2025 – MMA Space has developed a low-cost solar array capable of generating tens of kilowatts that can be manufactured in a fraction of the time of conventional solar ...

Jeff Thornburg helped turn a government research project into SpaceX’s most powerful rocket engine. Now, he’s trying to do the same thing at his startup Portal Space Systems, which is taking an idea ...

Voyager 1, launched in 1977, has traveled farther than any spacecraft in human history. After more than four decades of silent endurance through space, it now sails beyond the orbit of the outer ...

Over 14,000 pieces of junk are clogging up low Earth orbit, but this number could be reduced by a new invention that involves a satellite using the plasma exhaust of its ion engine to knock dangerous ...