NASA is planning to test a plasma engine - a technology that has the potential to open up interplanetary travel if succesful on the ISS (International Space Station). Its being called as the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (Vasimir).

The Vasimir involves the injection of a gas such as hydrogen into an engine that turns it into a plasma. That plasma is then energised further using radio signals as it flows through the engine, a process controlled by electromagnetic waves from superconducting magnets.

Accelerated and heated through this process the plasma is focused and directed as exhaust by a magnetic nozzle. Vasimir is many times more efficient than conventional chemical rockets and far less fuel is needed.

A scale model test engine would be taken to the ISS as and when it happens for further testing.

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