Scientists with the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) claim NASA’s results ‘re-confirm’ what they’d already achieved, and have plans to implement it in satellites ‘as quickly as possible.’ China claims they’ve created a working prototype of the ‘impossible’ reactionless engine – and they say they’re already testing it in orbit aboard the Tiangong-2 space laboratory. The radical, fuel-free EmDrive recently stirred up controversy after a paper published by a team of NASA researchers appeared to show they’d successfully built the technology.
The implications for this could be huge. For instance, current satellites could be half the size they are today without the need to carry fuel.
At a press conference in Beijing, researchers with CAST confirmed the government has been funding research into the technology since 2010, and claimed they’ve developed a device that’s already being tested in low-Earth orbit, IBTimes UK reports. It comes just a month after anonymous sources told IBTimes UK that tests on the EmDrive were underway aboard Tiangong-2 shown below.