NASA vs. EmDrive, second round: and yet it works

The situation with the “impossible” EmDrive engine on electromagnetic waves, exciting in its strangeness, was developed after another test by NASA, which again brought positive results. The agency’s engineers assure that they worked on the errors and eliminated all the shortcomings that could have influenced the result obtained last time. Nevertheless, the engine working on an incomprehensible principle continues to produce cravings.

At the NASA forum, engineer Paul March [Paul March] on October 31 spoke about what has been accomplished to date. Engineers, in particular, installed additional electromagnetic insulation in the test chamber, which reduced the influence of parasitic magnetic fields by at least an order of magnitude, and thus excluded the possible influence of the Lorentz force on the engine. The grounding of the torsion pendulum was also improved, and other work was carried out to improve the test setup.
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However, when the power of the radiator is 80 W, a thrust of about 100 μN is still present in the installation - as March put it, there are “anomalous signs of thrust”. Engineers are preparing new tests and new improvements - in particular, to compensate for thermal expansion, which, under vacuum, has a strong influence on the pilot plant.

Isaac Isaakovich Newton expresses his dissatisfaction with the fact that the electromagnetic waves reflected inside the cone-shaped metal chamber create cravings without any reactive components. But if, in the end, the engine's performance is irrefutably confirmed, it will be possible to make spaceships according to the “solar panels + batteries + magnetron + em-camera” scheme, or replace solar energy with nuclear energy. In the presence of an energy source, such an engine will be able to operate indefinitely, constantly giving the vehicle acceleration.

EmDrive came up with British engineer Roger Scheuer. In 2001, he founded the company Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd specifically for the development of an electromagnetic engine of his own design. In 2003, the public learned about their work, and the first third-party confirmation came in 2008 from our Chinese comrades . True, then no one believed them yet.

Enthusiasts from all over the world built their versions of the engine and confirmed the presence of thrust, but real popularity came to him only after last year the engineers at the respected NASA agency confirmed these findings in their tests. Their conclusions stated that the engine produces cravings that “cannot be attributed to the classical effects of electromagnetic phenomena” - in other words, of unknown origin. This summer, German physicists also independently confirmed the working capacity of EmDrive.