The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) just handed out a $14 million dollar contract to develop and test a nuclear thermal space propulsion system (NTP), Space.com reports.
The concept is simple: an on-board reactor generates heat, which is then pushed through a nozzle to produce thrust.
The contract, to a company called Gryphon Technologies, is meant to support DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program — essentially a project investigating whether the extreme temperatures produced by nuclear reactions can be used as a propulsion system.
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