Research lab
NASA center hosting the space nuclear propulsion project led by co-author Kurt Polzin.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman named Stephen Cash director of Marshall Space Flight Center, effective Oct. 19. He cited advanced propulsion and nuclear power as the work Cash is meant to lead the center into.
Reality
PRIMA, a 1.8-metre far-infrared telescope managed by JPL, moves into preliminary design with a project cost ceiling of $1.2 billion that excludes launch, a 2033 launch target and a confirmation review still ahead.
Reality
Ten current and former staff told Scientific American that NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center no longer has the people or the equipment to build a telescope like Roman. NASA says flagship missions remain a core Goddard capability.
Reality
More than half of what NASA handed out in Phase 2 of its LunaRecycle Challenge went to one MIT process that treats Zotek foam as reinforcement rather than as a contaminant to be sorted out of the trash.
Reality
NASA's space nuclear propulsion chief engineer says a bimodal design could nearly halve the time a Mars crew spends in space. The physics dates to the 1960s, and so does the test data.
Reality