An Oxfordshire-based nuclear fusion company has joined forces with a US business to use AI to design a hyper-fast space rocket capable of reaching Saturn’s moons in just two years.

Pulsar Fusion has announced a partnership with Princeton Satellite Systems in a move which could “drastically reduce the mission time” to Titan.

The duo will use AI machine learning simulations to create a deep space rocket engine with a 500,000mph potential – also making Mars reachable in 30 days.

Pulsar Fusion’s founder and chief executive Richard Dinan said: “This is a hugely significant step for Pulsar. By pooling our own research and resources with those of Princeton Satellite Systems, Pulsar has gained access to behavioural data from the world record holding fusion reactor (PRFC-2) coupled with recent advancements in machine learning, this will supercharge the development of our nuclear fusion rocket systems.

“Fusion Propulsion is free from many of the vast infrastructure requirements presented in the development of terrestrial fusion energy for power stations on Earth. Space is the ideal place to do fusion in terms of it being a vacuum and the extremely cold temperatures.” 

He added: “Humanity has a huge need for faster propulsion in our growing space economy and fusion offers 1000 x the power of conventional ion thrusters currently used in orbit. In short, if humans can achieve fusion for energy, then fusion propulsion in Space is inevitable.

“Our view is that fusion propulsion will be demonstrated in space decades before we can harness fusion for energy on Earth.”

The new partnership comes in the same week that the UK is to position itself as a global leader in the space-based solar power industry, having revealed a multi-million pound investment in eight new projects to develop cutting-edge technology.

In a speech at London Tech Week, energy security secretary Grant Shapps announced leading UK universities and technology companies are receiving government funding to drive forward innovation in the sector.

Spaced-based solar power collects energy from the Sun using panels on satellites and beaming it safely back to earth with wireless technology.

The winning projects include Cambridge University, who will develop ultra-lightweight solar panels for the satellites that can function in the high-radiation conditions of space, and Queen Mary University in London, who are working on a wireless system to enable the solar power collected in space to be transferred to earth.