To Mars and Beyond, Fast!

Abstract

As discussed briefly in Chapter 4, the VASIMR® team instigated a number of conceptual Nuclear-Electric Propulsion (NEP) Mars mission studies, starting in the early 1990s and using trajectory codes available at the time that could be adapted for constant power throttling (CPT) conditions. The 1995 NASA report “Rapid Mars Transits with Exhaust Modulated Plasma Propulsion [1],” was the first such study to examine the advantages of high power NEP coupled with VASIMR® technology to enable a new class of fast missions, with potential for further improvement through advances in the technology.