Finally Mach Effect propulsion had gotten useful levels of funding and will get a validation test with NASA. They reported interim results and have made good progress.
They now have presented the new experiments and path forward with the needed materials to clearly prove significant propulsion and unambiguous space experiments.
They have advanced the experimental work and will get test state-of-the-art PIN-PMN-PT materials.
They have demonstrated a Force versus Voltage scaling relationship that is consistent with the theory.
They have a roadmap to continue to advance the work as this proves out will be able to make a propellentless interstellar ship that they are designing to reach 40% of lightspeed.
Next Steps
• Publish –
– One or more papers on results of our current laboratory scale test program
– Additional peer-reviewed papers on theory are in preparation
– Paper on IMES-1 design and Concept of Operations (CONOPS)
• Upgrade test facilities and increase thrust –
–Increase data rate and number of channels
–Improve torsion balance
– Increase thrust ~10x
• Design an on-orbit test of the MEGA drive –
– Our planned on-orbit test using a microsatellite (or CubeSat) is presently at TRL ~ 2
– We favor a rotational test, spinning a microsatellite up (and down) by opposing drives. This removes atmospheric drag as a
major error source.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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