NASA, Department of Energy To Develop Lunar Surface Reactor By 2030 (spaceanddefense.io) 40
NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy plan to deploy a nuclear fission reactor on the Moon by 2030 to provide continuous, long-duration power for lunar bases, science missions, and future Mars exploration. space & defense reports: NASA said fission surface power will provide a critical capability for long-duration missions by delivering continuous, reliable electrical power independent of sunlight, lunar night cycles or extreme temperature conditions. Unlike solar-based systems, a nuclear reactor could operate for years without refuelling, supporting habitats, science payloads, resource utilisation systems and surface mobility.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said achieving long-term human presence on the Moon and future missions to Mars will require new approaches to power generation. He said closer collaboration with the Department of Energy is essential to delivering the capabilities needed to support sustained exploration and infrastructure development beyond Earth orbit. The fission surface power system is expected to produce safe, efficient and scalable electrical power, forming a foundational element of NASA's Moon-to-Mars architecture. Continuous power availability is seen as a key enabler for permanent lunar bases, in-situ resource utilisation and expanded scientific operations in permanently shadowed regions. Further reading: You Can Now Reserve a Hotel Room On the Moon For $250,000
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said achieving long-term human presence on the Moon and future missions to Mars will require new approaches to power generation. He said closer collaboration with the Department of Energy is essential to delivering the capabilities needed to support sustained exploration and infrastructure development beyond Earth orbit. The fission surface power system is expected to produce safe, efficient and scalable electrical power, forming a foundational element of NASA's Moon-to-Mars architecture. Continuous power availability is seen as a key enabler for permanent lunar bases, in-situ resource utilisation and expanded scientific operations in permanently shadowed regions. Further reading: You Can Now Reserve a Hotel Room On the Moon For $250,000
I thought they already existed (Score:2)
Looks like I was wrong. As these are essentially a variant of high-temperature (for radiation cooling) RTGs (maybe with criticality added?), not steam-engines, they are much simpler than regular reactors. Still apparently takes a long time to make them work.
Re: I thought they already existed (Score:1)
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Yes. At about 2kW and using Plutonium. Very expensive, very little power.
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not 2kw 470 or so at launch now they are about 40watts.
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2.4KW thermal power. 470W electrical power.
Re:I thought they already existed (Score:5, Informative)
No, not an RTG but a proper fission reactor as it says in the first line.
Tiny at 40kW, but orders or magnitude more power than a passive RTG, or SRG (Stirling Radioisotope Generator)
The FSP may use a Stirling engine, or instead a Closed Brayton Cycle, but powered by a fission reactor, not a radioisotope lump.
Unlike the earlier Kilopower design, FSP will use Low-Enriched Uranium.
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Yes. But no/low moving parts.
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Some of the designs in the SNAP program were absolutely fission reactors. You don't get 1 megawatt of electricity out of a radio-thermal design.
In particular snap 10a was a fission reactor we actually launched into space.
Read the pdf. This current program is a complete retread of SNAP.
Building on SNAP [Re:I thought they already ex...] (Score:2)
Read the pdf. This current program is a complete retread of SNAP.
The current program is vastly more sophisticated than SNAP was. The only reactor flown by SNAP was about 600 watts, and failed after two months in orbit. The proof of concept prototype for the current program is the KRUSTY reactor, successfully demonstrated at kilowatt levels, and smaller and more reliable than the SNAP-10. The program builds on SNAP, it doesn't repeat SNAP.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/cita... [nasa.gov]
https://www.tandfonline.com/do... [tandfonline.com]
Terminology [Re:I thought they already existed] (Score:2)
No, those are not fission reactors.
The SNAP ("Space Nuclear Auxiliary Power") program developed both nuclear fission reactors and also radioisotope sources. I think that only one reactor design was actually flown, SNAP-10; the rest were radioisotope systems.
Those are radiation reactors, either thermonuclear reactors
Be careful with terminology here. "Radiation reactors" is not a term used in the field, I assume by this you mean radioisotope sources (which are not reactors). And, isotope systems are nuclear thermal systems (nuclear systems that produce thermal energy), which is very very different fr
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In-flight refueling is going to be tested on the ground soon, as in weeks not months, and will probably be tested in orbit this year.
I think in-orbit storage of that fuel/oxidizer is a challenge.
I also think Starship as a manned lunar lander is a challenge, and hope the new N
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We have prety much free rane on anything we want to do.
"prety" I can ignore. "rane" I cannot. ;)
Joking aside, my assumption is that Trump's position on Greenland is exactly that same statement as you made. We do pretty much have free reign but so does everyone else and that's the sticking point...I think. I usually try to find some hidden agenda because every slimy political move is slimy, but this one, at least to my naive self, seems pretty straightforward. "We" have an interest in limiting how closely we let "enemies" get to our borders with established
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"prety" I can ignore. "rane" I cannot. ;)
How do you feel about "berried"?
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"We" have an interest in limiting how closely we let "enemies" get to our borders with established bases and working condition and access to resources.
We also already have an agreement with Denmark to allow US bases in Greenland as necessary, so Trump's idiotic rhetoric about "taking Greenland by force" is just him deliberately poking a hornet's nest with a stick to see what happens. There is no strategic benefit to pissing off our allies in return for something we already have.
As for what could happen: keep in mind that WW2 started because powerful countries started acquiring their neighbors' territory by force, and that caused everyone else to form mu
Radiative cooling (Score:2)
we are not putting a fission reactor on the moon. it would run for about an hour after it went critical and them melt down. NOTING ON THE MOON TO USE FOR COOLING.
It turns out that NASA has a large amount of experience in how to make cooling systems that operate in space. The answer is, you use radiative cooling: radiate the waste heat to space in the form of infrared. If you look at an image of the International Space Station [usc.edu], for example, you will see large white panels perpendicular to the solar arrays. These are the radiators; they radiate waste heat to space. (Why are they white? To radiate efficiently, they have to be black in the infrared, but by making them w
Try running some numbers [Re:Radiative cooling] (Score:2)
Correct; radiation, convection and conduction are the three ways to transfer heat. Convection and Conduction are not available in space, so the choice is radiation. Radiation is governed by the Stefan-Boltzmann law, P(radiated) = epsilon sigma T^4 A, with epsilon the emissivity (equal to 1 for a radiator that's black in infrared), and sigma the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.
This is well known, and NASA engineers know it.
There are a couple of decent Stefan-Boltzmann calculators online. You can grab one and pla
Sure, 2030 (Score:2)
Re:Sure, 2030 (Score:4, Funny)
it is lego version of the reactor deployed by the lego Artemis.
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NASA? I'd give them 50/50. SpaceX? Almost certainly, although how successful it will be remains questionable.
you are sure they didnt mean (Score:2)
In For All Mankind... (Score:2)
in an alternate future where the Russians beat us to the moon and Apollo never ended, we did this in 1973..
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in an alternate future where the Russians beat us to the moon and Apollo never ended, we did this in 1973..
Well, in that alternate future, the surface of the moon might be glowing, but that's not a reactor. :-)
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in an alternate future where the Russians beat us to the moon and Apollo never ended, we did this in 1973..
Well, in that alternate future, the surface of the moon might be glowing, but that's not a reactor. :-)
It certainly got close to that. If you haven't watched, definitely check it out. Pretty amazing show.
Since when does solar need fuel? (Score:2)
Unlike solar-based systems, a nuclear reactor could operate for years without refuelling
Does someone not understand what solar means?
Gibberish in the summary (Score:2)
"Unlike solar-based systems, a nuclear reactor could operate for years without refuelling"
I'm sorry, but that is *like* solar-based systems. Who wrote this?
The reason to use a reactor on the moon is because of the 1/2 month night, which kind of makes solar panels useless (battery conceivably would work but I suspect would weigh far more than this reactor).
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I was just complaining about a statement that made it sound like you have to refuel solar systems.
I agree there are possible reasons solar could be used. Batteries and transmission lines are not impossible. However I feel like there are at least reasonable arguments that these are much more expensive than a nuclear reactor.
There are locations on the moon where you could put several fields not too far from each other and at least one is in sunlight all the time. Not sure if they want to limit the moonbase lo
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The moon rotates, so this is only true at the poles. The moon is only inclined 1.543 relative to the orbit of earth about the sun, so it is almost perpendicular and the terminator is not going to move very far away from the pole, so this does seem feasable.
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Coal? (Score:2)
But Trump nixed the plan and instead we will be shipping 10 tons of coal to the moon.
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