Scientist create microwave-powered rocket which flies without fuel
It was only few days’ back when we saw a laser-powered helicopter, and now we have another rocket flying effort, which reminds us of the fact that aircrafts can be flown off the ground with little or no fuel. Latest display of such an effort comes from the Naka Fusion Institute of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, which has launched a 126 gram rocket using a Gyrotron - essentially a maser – a high powered ground-based microwave beam emitter.
With use of high-powered microwave beam, scientists successfully sent pulses of microwave energy directly to the underside of a hollow 126g rocket model, enabling it to create heated air to about 10,000 degrees Celsius, thus resulting in the rocket lift-off of about 1.2 meters. This isn’t the first such use of this technology, scientists have had previous attempt too, but this effort certainly paves way for the possibility of high-power wireless transmission for the future applications including rocket propulsion.
Via: TechnologyReview
