Monthly Archives: December 2022

Perseverance, Ignition, Breakeven

Overcoming decades of enormous physics and engineering challenges, and despite persistent pessimism, skepticism, and criticism, the National Ignition Facility has achieved an historic milestone for controlled nuclear fusion, a target energy gain factor of . Last week, NIF focussed the world’s most powerful laser … Continue reading

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Distant Retrograde Orbit

The Artemis 1 mission’s Orion spacecraft has successfully entered and exited a distant retrograde orbit about Moon. DRO is a stable and easily accessible orbit requiring a low velocity change . In DRO, Earth‘s non-negligible gravity contributes to a 3-body problem that … Continue reading

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