Nukes on Mars? NASA tests reactor to sustain human life

NASA's new energy product under development with several partners will form a new way for the agency to provide astronauts with power during planetary missions

NASA's new energy product under development with several partners will form a new way for the agency to provide astronauts with power during planetary missions

NASA's Glenn Research Centre collaborated with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre and the Los Alamos National Laboratory to design and developed prototype power system.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration and US Department of Energy officials, at a Las Vegas news conference, detailed the development of the nuclear fission system under NASA's Kilopower project.

On outer planets, there is a challenging environment to generate power from sunlight and from fuel that is much limited.

This pioneering space fission power system could provide up to 10 kilowatts of electrical power - enough to run two average households - continuously for at least 10 years, the United States space agency said in a statement on Friday. The system is being tested in the Nevada desert, where initial tests have proven successful.

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Speaking at the reactor's launch event, Nasa's space technology mission directorate chief, Steve Jurczyk, said: "Mars is a very hard environment for power systems, with less sunlight than Earth or the Moon, very cold nighttime temperatures, [and] very interesting dust storms that can last weeks and months that engulf the entire planet". The current prototype features a uranium-25 reactor core; multiple units could provide "tens of kilowatts of power", according to Jurczyk.

Power is one of the most crucial resources that astronauts would require if they go on a space mission to the Moon, Mars or beyond.

A reliable and efficient power system will be essential for day-to-day necessities, such as lighting, water and oxygen, and for mission objectives, like running experiments and producing fuel for the long journey home. This technology could power the life support system that helps to mine resources and electrically powered the spaceship thrust systems on missions in space.

The Kilopower reactor has been successfully tested at various power levels, and researchers plan to conduct a full-power test in the near future.

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