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 ...

As you're reading this, NASA's records read some 250 spacecraft sent into space, carrying with them either humans or our hopes for some revolutionary discovery. None of them have actually left our ...

If you want to go fast—and far—in space, the consensus is that you have to go nuclear. The U.S. Space Force, DARPA and NASA in recent years have funded several nuclear propulsion development efforts ...

Mobility in space continually cements itself as important in this modern era of space exploration, with satellites like Starlink, Amazon's upcoming Project Kuiper, the International Space Station, and ...

If we achieve advanced nuclear, antimatter propulsion or other advance propulsion it would be possible to achieve near constant acceleration. This would enable travel times to Mars in the 3-8 day ...

Editor’s note: This series profiles six of the Seattle region’s “Uncommon Thinkers”: inventors, scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs transforming industries and driving positive change in the ...

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 ...

The company is developing a technology called solar thermal propulsion. A former engineer behind SpaceX's powerful rocket engines is now leading a new effort to transform space travel using solar ...

Viewed from orbit, Jackass Flats — situated in southern Nevada about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas — could easily be confused for Mars. The alluvial basin is full of tan and gray regolith, hued ...

The era of stationary spacecraft may soon be over. Portal Space Systems, a company headed by propulsion expert Jeff Thornburg, is looking to help usher in a new renaissance in in-space transportation ...