NASA completes full-power tests of small, portable nuclear reactor

NASA completes full-power tests of small, portable nuclear reactor

  • May 4, 2018
Table of Contents

NASA completes full-power tests of small, portable nuclear reactor

Being able to generate power will be essential for long-term space travel. Powering a stay on Mars, for example, will require a lot of fuel, way more than we can pack onto a rocket. That’s why NASA, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Department of Energy and a number of other groups have been working on a small, transportable nuclear reactor that can reliably generate power on the go.

The reactor they’re developing is called Kilopower and earlier this year, they announced that they had conducted successful tests of the system. In March, the team ran the first full-power tests and during a press conference today, they reported that those tests went extremely well.

Source: engadget.com

Tags :
Share :
comments powered by Disqus

Related Posts

Drilling with Curiosity

Drilling with Curiosity

Remotely operating a rover on another planet so that it can gather and analyze samples requires extensive planning, failure work-arounds, and compromise.

Read More
New Shepard flies again, bringing suborbital space tourism closer

New Shepard flies again, bringing suborbital space tourism closer

Sunday’s flight was Blue Origin’s eighth overall launch of the New Shepard system and the second time this particular spacecraft and booster have flown. They last flew in December. It is believed that this capsule, the third one built by the company, will undergo extensive testing before crew flights begin in the fourth vehicle.

Read More