Long before any spacecraft can attempt a faster journey to Mars, scientists must first solve one of space exploration’s biggest challenges: propulsion.

Russian engineers are betting that a radically different rocket engine can compress the long slog to Mars into something closer to an interplanetary commute. Their new plasma propulsion prototype, ...

Russia's state atomic energy corporation, Rosatom, has developed a plasma electric rocket engine that could send spacecraft to Mars in just 30 to 60 days. The plasma engine works by accelerating ...

A peer-reviewed study modeling Mars transit times for chemical propulsion rockets found that even optimized Starship-class trajectories would still require roughly three months to reach the Red Planet ...

PLASMA ENGINE FACILITY: Safran has inaugurated a new plasma engine facility at its space propulsion plant in Vernon, north of Paris. The facility, partly financed with a 1 million euro ($1.3 million) ...