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A Chinese newspaper and other sources are reporting that China is already testing an EmDrive thruster in space, aboard the Tiangong-2 space station:
[Researchers] in China have announced that they've already been testing the controversial drive in low-Earth orbit, and they're looking into using the EM Drive to power their satellites as soon as possible.
Big disclaimer here - all we have to go on right now is a press conference announcement [archive.is] and an article from a government-sponsored Chinese newspaper (and the country doesn't have the best track record when it comes to trustworthy research).
[...] But what the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) team is saying also corresponds with information provided to IB Times from an anonymous source. According to their informant, China already has an EM Drive on board its version of the International Space Station, the space laboratory Tiangong-2.
[Continues...]
It had been recently suggested that the U.S. is testing an EmDrive aboard the X-37B spaceplane:
In November 2016 the International Business Times claimed the U.S. government was testing a version of the EmDrive on the Boeing X-37B and that the Chinese government has made plans to incorporate the EmDrive on its orbital space laboratory Tiangong-2. In 2009 an EmDrive technology transfer contract with Boeing was undertaken via a State Department TAA and a UK export licence, approved by the UK MOD. The appropriate US government agencies including DARPA, USAF and NSSO were aware of the contract. However, prior to flight, the propulsion experiment aboard the X-37B was officially announced as a test of a Hall-effect thruster built by Aerojet Rocketdyne.
Some are already envisioning probes that could reach far beyond the Kuiper belt (thousands of astronomical units) in around a decade. This would allow the exploration of trans-Neptunian objects such as Sedna (around 86 AU from the Sun, with an estimated aphelion of 936 AU) and the hypothetical Planet Nine (estimated to be between 200 and 1,200 AU away).
We must not allow an EmDrive gap.
Also at redOrbit, and Chinatopix, which notes that previous Chinese EmDrive tests have resulted in false positives and that the EmDrive was not publicly listed among the items brought aboard the Tiangong-2 in October.
Previously: EmDrive Peer-Reviewed Paper Coming in December; Theseus Planning a Cannae Thruster Cubesat
It's Official: NASA's Peer-Reviewed EmDrive Paper Has Finally Been Published
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 26 2016, @06:45PM
there is now a peer reviewed paper where they detail an experiment where a force is measured, even though i don't expect a force to be there.
i'm pretty sure others will try to replicate this within 2 years, and apparently it's not hard to scale it up, so they should also do that.
If the results are real, then it is an unexplained phenomenon.
I don't have the time to figure out if the people claiming these results are trustworthy or not, and i don't know enough about quantum field theory to try to figure out whether this may be real.
i am willing to bet my PhD that, if the effect is real, there is definitely more than Maxwell's equations behind it.
hence my waiting for confirmation from the mainstream, or at least some hovering black box that is being sold by these people, with them claiming trade secrets, hence no explanation.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday December 27 2016, @08:08AM
This is the same logic conundrum I run into trying to prove or disprove Rossi's E-Cat.
Personally, I think he's running a very profitable theater for men of the suit and tie to throw money into. The stuff I have seen so far ( The videos he sent to Steven Krivet of New Energy Times ) to me demonstrated nothing more than a fantastically expensive tea kettle which probably made bad tea.
However, I remain unconvinced that cold fusion is impossible. I do not think he is on the right track, but neither do I have a PhD, nor do I think monied people give much of a damn about any insight I may have either.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]