A Chinese team has demonstrated a prototype of a microwave plasma thruster capable of working in the Earth's atmosphere and producing thrust with an efficiency comparable to the jet engines you'd find ...

Chinese scientists suggest they’re bringing space plasma thrusters down to Earth, with a new kind that performs as well in the atmosphere as others do in the vacuum of space. Using just air and ...

I usually approach papers on the subject of alternative thrusters with a certain degree of cynicism. But we’ve finally been given a study on microwave thrusters that doesn’t rely on impossible physics ...

Jet engines are relatively simple in their basic design, but advancements in gas turbine engine technology have mostly done away with the cool-looking bucket-type reverse thrust systems. These thrust ...

A new plasma thruster could scale up to compete with traditional jet engines. The plasma is magnified by high-intensity microwaves and pressurized air. Researchers had to invent a way to measure the 1 ...

Assuming we hand-wave all of the scaling questions (!!), what this really looks like is a step towards real electrically-power airplanes. If I read this correctly, this system is considerably more ...