ROCKET COMPANY TESTS POWERFUL ION ENGINE

Since 2005, the Ad Astra Rocket Company of Webster, Texas, founded by former astronaut Frankling Chang-Díaz, has been working to perfect a type of engine it calls VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket).

Now, the company has run its VX-200 engine at 201 kilowatts in a vacuum chamber in Houston, passing the 200-kilowatt mark for the first time.

For more information go to:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17918-rocket-company-tests-worlds-most-powerful-ion-engine.html