Latest Rocket fuels Stories
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA has announced that it will stop using the rocket fuel that has been an aeronautics mainstay since the 1940s and switch to a greener, environmentally-benign propellant. The space agency says that the first space flight powered with this new fuel will take place in 2015. Hydrazine was used to power the first rocket-powered fighter plane in World War II, the Viking Missions of the 1970s, and more recently the Curiosity mission on...
Will our next generation of space travel be powered by cat urine? Researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands released a study which details the work of a particular bacterium that turns the smelly contents of your cat box (or any other type of urine) into space fuel, AFP is reporting. The results of the scientists’ work show that the bacterium anammox, first identified in the 1990’s, thrives in the absence of oxygen and transforms ammonium, the ingredient of...
On the day running up to launch when a spacecraft is fuelled, ground personnel look more like astronauts than engineers, putting on spacesuit-like protective gear. This is an essential precaution when dealing with the current hydrazine fuel, but a new development could make satellite fuelling no more dangerous than filling up a car.First used in rocket engines by the German Luftwaffe during World War Two, hydrazine remains the main propellant of choice for a satellite's onboard thrusters,...
University of Oregon chemists, biologists team to boost boron's expanding use in medicineChemists and biologists have successfully demonstrated that specially synthesized boron compounds are readily accepted in biologically active enzymes, a move that, they say, is a proof of concept that could lead to new drug design strategies.In June 2008, University of Oregon chemist Shih-Yuan Liu reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society his lab's synthesis of boron-nitrogen compounds with...
Engineers and food scientists are teaming up to develop a new type of gelled fuel the consistency of orange marmalade designed to improve the safety, performance and range of rockets for space and military applications."This is a very multidisciplinary project," said Stephen Heister, the Purdue University professor of aeronautics and astronautics who is leading one of two teams on the project, which is funded by the U.S. Army Research Office.Gels are inherently safer than liquids...
Geotec, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: GETC) announced today that it has filed patent applications with the United States Patent Office. Acknowledgment, as patent pending, has been received by the USPO for "Methods of refining hydrocarbons fuels and post-combustion production by enzyme and protein reactions." (Application number 61/132,397) The patent applications included the protein and enzyme processing, cleaning and purification of pre-combustion solid, liquid, and gas hydrocarbons. The patent...
