Dec 8 2008
From The Space Library
Franklin R. Chang-Dìaz, President and CEO of Ad Astra Rocket Company, and NASA Associate Administrator for Space Operations William H. Gerstenmaier signed a Space Act Agreement to test the new Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine. NASA had originally studied the VASIMR engine, and Ad Astra was developing the engine for commercial use. The engine would heat plasma to very high temperatures, for maximum fuel efficiency, generating 4 newtons of thrust, with a specific impulse of approximately 6,000 seconds. Congress had designed the Space Act Agreement as a series of “gates,” allowing NASA and Ad Astra to assess the progress of VASIMR’s development. Ad Astra would develop the engine, which could cost as much as US$150 million, and would place it on the ISS for performance testing in space. This agreement was the first that NASA had signed for a payload on the ISS’s exterior. Officials hoped that the VASIMR project represented an expansion of the role of the ISS as a national laboratory.
NASA, “NASA Administrator Hails Agreement with Ad Astra,” news release 08-332, 17 December 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/dec/HQ_08-332_VASMIR_engine.html (accessed 22 August 2011); Frank Morring Jr., “NASA Inks Agreement To Test Engine on ISS,” Aviation Week, 17 December 2008.
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