Bletchley-based Pulsar Fusion announces rocket design partnership

Pulsar Fusion, a Bletchley-based nuclear fusion company, has partnered with US-based Princeton Satellite Systems to design a space rocket with the aim of assisting the mission to reach the moons of Saturn.

The project is part of an effort to reduce the mission time to Saturn's moon Titan.

Pulsar and Princeton ill use AI machine learning simulations to create a deep space rocket engine with a 500,000 mph potential, capable of travelling to Saturn's moons in 2 years and Mars in 30 days.

This partnership follows the signing of a UK / US defence sharing deal in Washington by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

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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.

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.

“Humanity has a huge need for faster propulsion in our growing space economy and fusion offers 1000 times the power of conventional ion thrusters currently used in orbit. In short, if humans can achieve fusion for energy, then fusion propulsion in Space is inevitable.

“Our view is that fusion propulsion will be demonstrated in space decades before we can harness fusion for energy on Earth. “

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