UK nuclear fusion company to use AI to design hyper-fast space rocket to Saturn
A British nuclear fusion company has joined forces with a leading American company to use AI to design a hyper-fast space rocket capable of reaching Saturn’s moons in just two years.
Oxfordshire-based Pulsar Fusion has announced a partnership with Princeton Satellite Systems in a move which could drastically reduce the mission time to Saturn’s moon Titan.
The two leading British and American companies aim to create a deep space rocket engine with a 500,000 mph potential – also making Mars reachable in just 30 days.
The collaboration will see the two companies using AI machine learning to study data from the World record holding PFRC-2 reactor, in order to better understand the behaviour of plasma under electromagnetic heating and confinement, when configured as an aneutronic propulsion system.
The move comes just days after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak signed a UK/US defence-sharing deal in Washington
Announcing the partnership Pulsar Fusion’s founder and CEO Richard Dinan said:
“This is a hugely significant step for Pulsar. By pooling our own research and resources with those of Princeton Satellite Systems, Pulsar has gained access to behavioural data from the world record-holding fusion reactor (PRFC-2).
“Coupled with recent advancements in machine learning, this will supercharge the development of our nuclear fusion rocket systems.
“Fusion Propulsion is free from many of the vast infrastructure requirements presented in the development of terrestrial fusion energy for power stations on Earth.
“Space is the ideal place to do fusion in terms of it being a vacuum and the extremely cold temperatures.
“Unlike a fusion power station, fusion propulsion doesn’t require a giant steam turbine and fuels can be sourced externally rather than needing to be created on site.”
