NASA Fires Up Powerful Lithium-Fed Thruster for Trips to Mars

VIDEO A prototype of a lithium-fed magnetoplasmadynamic thruster was tested in a special chamber at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in February 2026. With further development, thrusters like this could be part of a nuclear electric propulsion system powering human missions to Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech A technology that could propel crewed missions to Mars and robotic spacecraft throughout the solar system was recently put to the test at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern …