Ad Astra Rocket Company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
 Artist's impression of several VASIMR engines propelling a craft through space | |
| Industry | Defence industry |
|---|---|
| Products | Spacecraft propulsion |
| Website | www |
The Ad Astra Rocket Company, a U.S. Delaware corporation, is a rocket propulsion company dedicated to the development of advanced plasma rocket propulsion technology. Located in Webster, Texas, three miles away from NASA's Johnson Space Center, and in Liberia, Costa Rica, the company was incorporated on January 14, 2005. The President and CEO of Ad Astra Rocket Company is retired astronaut Franklin Chang-Díaz.[1] The company has been working on Chang-Díaz's concept of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, known by its acronym VASIMR. The VASIMR is intended to achieve several advantages over current chemical rocket designs, including lunar cargo transport, in-space refueling, and ultra-high speeds for distant space missions.[2]
The Ad Astra Rocket Company Costa Rica (AARC CR) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ad Astra Rocket Company. AARC CR was formed in 2005. The facility is located approximately 10 km west of the city of Liberia, capital of the province of Guanacaste, on the campus of EARTH University.[3] On December 13, 2006, the Costa Rican team of AARC generated its first plasma.[4] After extensive testing of a 200 kW ground-test VASIMR unit, the company is aiming for a three-year flight test mission.
In March 2015, NASA selected Ad Astra for the NextSTEP program.[5] The partnership was still continuing as of July 2021,[6] with Ad Astra aiming to achieve the NASA-set goal of firing VASIMR continuously for 100 hours at 100 kilowatts in the second half of 2021.[7]
The VASIMR is an advanced rocket design that uses plasma for rocket propulsion. Chang-Díaz developed the concept of the VASIMR in 1979, shortly following his graduate research in fusion and plasma-based rocket propulsion at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After being selected as an astronaut in 1980, Chang-Díaz served on seven different shuttle missions, a space record that he shares with astronaut Jerry L. Ross. After retiring in 2005 from NASA, Chang-Díaz formed Ad Astra Rocket Company to develop and commercialize the VASIMR technology.[8]
Ad Astra completed a formal Preliminary Design Review (PDR) on the VF-200 engine with NASA in June 2013. This is the initial major design milestone on the path to flying a VF-200 on the ISS.[9][needs update]
August 1st, 2024: NASA recently delivered $10 million in funding to Ad Astra Rocket Company of Texas for further development of its Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), an electromagnetic thruster capable of propelling a spaceship to Mars in just 39 days. NASA's funding was part of the "12 Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnership." Ad Astra's rocket will travel ten times quicker than today's chemical rockets while using one-tenth the amount of fuel.[10]