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A NASA project will test a small nuclear fission power system that could provide kilowatts or megawatts of power for space missions:
In preparing for possible missions to the Red Planet in the near future, NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) has been given the go-ahead to test a small nuclear reactor that could one day run equipment on the Martian surface.
The Kilopower project[PDF] is working to advance a design for a compact, low-cost, and scalable nuclear fission power system for missions that require lots of power, such as a human mission to Mars. The technology uses a fission reactor with a uranium-235 reactor core to generate heat, which is then transferred via passive sodium heat pipes to Stirling engines. Those engines use that heat to create pressure, which moves a piston – much as old coal-powered ships used steam pressure to run their pistons. When coupled to an alternator, the Stirling engine produces electricity.
"What we are striving to do is give space missions an option beyond RTGs [radioisotope thermoelectric generators], which generally provide a couple hundred watts or so," Lee Mason, STMD's principal technologist for Power and Energy Storage at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a NASA news release. "The big difference between all the great things we've done on Mars, and what we would need to do for a human mission to that planet, is power."
Mason said the new technology could provide kilowatts of power and even be upgraded to provide hundreds of kilowatts or even megawatts of power. "We call it the Kilopower project because it gives us a near-term option to provide kilowatts for missions that previously were constrained to use less," Mason said. "But first things first, and our test program is the way to get started."
Also at World Nuclear News.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday December 01 2017, @09:10AM (7 children)
It doesn't say it in the summary, and it is hard to get out of the article, but I think the point is that this enables deployment on the Martian poles where sun is hard to come by. My impression however is that solar gives more energy/kg. Can anyone confirm?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday December 01 2017, @09:34AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight#Intensity_in_the_Solar_System [wikipedia.org]
http://pvcdrom.pveducation.org/SUNLIGHT/SPACE.HTM [pveducation.org]
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/19924/solar-panels-on-mars [stackexchange.com]
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(Score: 1) by Crash on Friday December 01 2017, @10:01AM
According to Wikipedia, the relative Sunlght intensity on Mars is between 37% and 50% of Earth's.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday December 01 2017, @12:52PM (2 children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 01 2017, @01:26PM (1 child)
Probably meant kg of Stirling engine vs. solar panel. Unless you are building them on Mars with Martian materials, you need to fly the Stirling engine or solar panels there. They have a certain mass and can provide a certain amount of power (with solar fluctuating more).
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(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday December 05 2017, @08:21PM
A bit late, but yeah I meant per kilogram of engine weight.
(Score: 1) by Muad'Dave on Friday December 01 2017, @06:09PM
Not when you're likely to have massive dust storms that last years. Mars is like that.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday December 02 2017, @03:28AM
The problem with solar on Mars iswhen you get a dust storm that lasts for months and covers the whole planet. Remember when Mariner 9 arrived at Mars just to have to wait for months (actually according to wiki, only a month) to see anything besides the top of Olympus Mons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_mars#Effect_of_dust_storms [wikipedia.org]