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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 29 2018, @04:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the next-time-go-for-megapower dept.

Initial tests of NASA's Kilopower nuclear power system have been successful, and full-power testing will be done in March. Each Kilopower unit is expected to provide between 1 kW to 10 kW of electric power:

Months-long testing began in November at the energy department's Nevada National Security Site, with an eye toward providing energy for future astronaut and robotic missions in space and on the surface of Mars, the moon or other solar system destinations.

A key hurdle for any long-term colony on the surface of a planet or moon, as opposed to NASA's six short lunar surface visits from 1969 to 1972, is possessing a power source strong enough to sustain a base but small and light enough to allow for transport through space. "Mars is a very difficult environment for power systems, with less sunlight than Earth or the moon, very cold nighttime temperatures, very interesting dust storms that can last weeks and months that engulf the entire planet," said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate. "So Kilopower's compact size and robustness allows us to deliver multiple units on a single lander to the surface that provides tens of kilowatts of power," Jurczyk added.

[...] Lee Mason, NASA's principal technologist for power and energy storage, said Mars has been the project's main focus, noting that a human mission likely would require 40 to 50 kilowatts of power. The technology could power habitats and life-support systems, enable astronauts to mine resources, recharge rovers and run processing equipment to transform resources such as ice on the planet into oxygen, water and fuel. It could also potentially augment electrically powered spacecraft propulsion systems on missions to the outer planets.

NASA's next Mars mission is InSight, a stationary lander scheduled to launch in May. It will use two MegaFlex solar arrays from Orbital ATK. NASA's Mars 2020 rover is scheduled to launch in July 2020. It will use 4.8 kg of plutonium dioxide to provide no more than 110 Watts of power.

The Juno mission is the first mission to Jupiter to use solar panels. Juno uses 72 square meters of solar panels to generate a maximum of just 486 Watts at Jupiter. Mars receives about 12 times more solar radiation per m2 than Jupiter. The New Horizons mission to Pluto and Cassini–Huygens mission to Saturn both used radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). Cassini used three RTGs originally rated for 300 W each. A spare Cassini RTG was used for New Horizons, which provided 245.7 W at launch (~200 W by the Pluto encounter).

The Fission System Gateway to Abundant Power for Exploration

Also at NASA and Popular Science.

Previously: NASA's Kilopower Project Testing a Nuclear Stirling Engine


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 29 2018, @06:49PM (5 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 29 2018, @06:49PM (#629947) Journal
    And how many of those will launch in the next four decades? There have been nine missions [wikipedia.org] to the outer planets (Jupiter or beyond) since 1973.
  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 29 2018, @06:56PM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday January 29 2018, @06:56PM (#629951) Journal

    The frequency doesn't matter. Obviously they are developing this technology, and it can be used for a variety of different missions, including outer solar system missions. Increasing the power available to outer solar system missions is a good thing. It means spacecraft can carry more instruments, use more powerful transmitters, and increase thrust to ion engines or VASIMR. It could enable a nuclear-powered submarine in the lakes on Titan, or a rover on Triton, Pluto, etc.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @07:17PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @07:17PM (#629969)

      It's always impressive when a new technology promises to enable missions that simply would not be practical or even possible with the existing tech.

      I am excited for the future of space exploration.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 30 2018, @02:38AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 30 2018, @02:38AM (#630151) Journal

      The frequency doesn't matter.

      The frequency matters a great deal. It is the most important economy of scale out there with any space activity, including missions to the outer planets.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @07:13PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @07:13PM (#629968)

    You are like a hoover vacuum for all things good.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 30 2018, @02:40AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 30 2018, @02:40AM (#630152) Journal
      I'm pointing out the futility of designing equipment that could only be used on a few space projects during your lifetime. We can do better than that. If you want actual good, rather than just whining about it, you'll want space programs that do more.