This is the region outside of Earth’s atmosphere to just past the moon’s orbit.
Specifically, the agency has awarded a contract to support the Demonstration Rocket for the Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) programme, which aims to demonstrate an NTP system on orbit by 2025.
Over the next 18 months, General Atomics says it will deliver a preliminary design of the NTP system “in order to demonstrate and ensure the system is operationally effective and able to be built and validated in low-earth orbit within the next five years”.
