CLEVELAND — A small robotic surveyor arrives to explore a near-Earth asteroid. Another robotic spacecraft is returning to Earth with a pristine comet surface sample. Meanwhile, a robotic explorer is ...

Click to open image viewer. This is a cesium ion engine developed by the Electro-Optical Systems, Inc. as an experimental high-energy thruster for spacecraft. Ion engines produce extremely low thrusts ...

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft successfully completed the first test of its ion propulsion system over the weekend. The system is vital to the success of Dawn’s 8-year, 1.6 billion-kilometer (3-billion-mile) ...

Space debris is a growing threat to satellites and missions, with over 14,000 pieces already cluttering low-Earth orbit. To address this, Kazunori Takahashi, a researcher at Tohoku University in Japan ...

Over 14,000 pieces of junk are clogging up low Earth orbit, but this number could be reduced by a new invention that involves a satellite using the plasma exhaust of its ion engine to knock dangerous ...