Dashing and Coasting to the Interstellar Finish Line

NASA Funds Advanced Propulsion Project

A race to the edge of the solar system and into interstellar space could come out of a contract awarded recently by NASA for the University of Washington to develop an innovative space propulsion concept. The Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion - M2P2 - would use the solar wind to push on a small imitation of the Earth's magnetosphere and accelerate the spacecraft to overtake the Pioneers and Voyagers and become the first manmade object to leave the solar system.

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Linda Porter
NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville AL 35812
(256)544-7588
(256)544-7128 (fax)
[email protected]