![]() ![]() In addition, Kilopower is self-regulating, McClure said. (Flipping the switch won't necessarily always occur on the surface of the moon or Mars, by the way the Kilopower reactor is flexible enough to be incorporated into a deep-space probe without much modification, significantly aiding electric propulsion, McClure said.) The devices won't be turned on until they reach deep space, so there will be no threat of dangerous radiation exposure even if the reactors' rockets crash back to Earth. The Kilopower reactors will be quite safe, he stressed. (Without shielding, the 10-kWe reactor would weigh about 3,300 lbs., or 1,500 kg.) Some of this mass could be pared down if the reactor is buried and therefore doesn't require as much astronaut-protecting shielding, McClure said. ![]() With shielding, the entire 10-kWe reactor would likely weigh about 4,400 lbs. The reactor core alone, without any shielding, would be about as big as a roll of paper towels, McClure said. The entire 10-kWe machine would stand just 11 feet (3.4 meters) tall, and the reactor component would be the size of an old-school metal garbage can. These devices are smaller than you might think. So, four scaled-up Kilopower reactors could meet the energy needs of NASA explorers, with a fifth reactor likely landed to provide a spare. Its output is scalable up to about 10 kWe, and it can operate for about 15 years, McClure said. Related: NASA's Human Mars Mission Will Require Living Off the Land Going to Mars?Īs its name suggests, the Kilopower reactor is designed to generate at least 1 kilowatt of electrical power (1 kWe). (For the uninitiated, Duff is the beer favored by Homer Simpson, and degenerate, tax-dodging lout Krusty the Clown hosts a kids' TV show in the "Simpsons" universe.) Project team member Dave Poston is a big fan, McClure said. And yes, "Simpsons" buffs, the Kilopower folks are your people: DUFF and KRUSTY are references to the iconic animated TV show. The Kilopower project officially started in 2015, but its architects proved out the basic concept back in 2012, via an experiment called Demonstration Using Flattop Fissions (DUFF). "This was an extremely successful test," McClure said. This efficiency dwarfs that of RTGs, which convert about 7% of available heat. In the ground-test series that wrapped up in March 2018, which was known as KRUSTY (Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology), the reactor converted 30% of fission heat into electricity, McClure said. (Nuclear power plants, by contrast, generally use this heat to create turbine-turning steam.) It converts the heat generated by splitting atoms into electricity, via devices called Stirling engines. Like nuclear power plants designed to stay put on Earth, Kilopower is a fission reactor. Human exploration of Mars will therefore demand a different energy-production strategy. After all, the pioneers will need electricity to purify their water, generate oxygen from the carbon-dioxide-dominated Martian atmosphere, charge up their rovers, heat their habitats and so on. (This output declines slowly over time.)Ī crewed Mars outpost will have considerably higher energy demands than that: around 40 kilowatts of continuously available electrical power (40 kWe), even for the small research station NASA envisions setting up by the late 2030s, McClure said. The one used by Curiosity and NASA's upcoming Mars 2020 rover, for example, generates about 110 watts of electricity at the start of a mission. The power output from RTGs is relatively low. NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, New Horizons spacecraft, and Curiosity Mars rover, along with many other robotic explorers, employ radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), which convert the heat thrown off by the radioactive decay of plutonium-238 into electricity. Nuclear energy has been powering spacecraft for decades. ![]()
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