Broadcast Buyers Guide - Nautel Technology Pushes Plasma Rockets Closer to Reality

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Nautel Technology Pushes Plasma Rockets Closer to Reality

Hackett’s Cove, Nova Scotia -- Utilizing high efficiency solid state RF generators made by Nautel Limited, Ad Astra Rocket Company has achieved a new power milestone on its VASIMR® VX-200 rocket project. The company reported reaching its highly-coveted 200 kW maximum power milestone on September 30, 2009 in tests conducted at Ad Astra’s Houston, Texas laboratory.

An acronym for Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, VASIMR® is a new high-power plasma-based space propulsion technology originally studied by NASA and now in private development by Ad Astra. The VASIMR® engine works with plasmas, electrically charged fluids that can be heated to extreme temperatures by radio waves and controlled and guided by strong magnetic fields. Ad Astra partnered with Nautel, who supplied the high power RF generators for generating the plasma gases used for propulsion. The company hopes for a 2014 commercial deployment of the technology, which could greatly reduce the operational costs of space exploration and shorten transit times for missions to Mars and beyond.

“We are pleased to be partnering with Ad Astra on this exciting project and congratulate them on achieving this important milestone in their development,” said Peter Conlon, President and CEO of Nautel. “Projects such as these are not only exciting developments in space sciences, they inspire our engineers to continue pushing the limits in efficiency and capabilities of our standard broadcast transmitter and navigational beacon lines.”

Sample video of VASIMR® plasma rocket technology may be viewed on YouTube using this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zSou_r-W9Q

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