CAPSLOCKSTUCK
Spaced Out Lunar Tick
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| System Name | Party On |
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The country is betting on nuclear propulsion because it weighs almost half as much as a chemical rocket without reducing thrust.
This means larger payloads of cargo can be carried on the spacecraft and they can also be made to travel far faster.
And unlike existing technology which uses defined trajectories, a nuclear engine also allows a spacecraft to manoeuvre throughout the flight.
The $274 million project, which was originally overseen by the space agency RosCosmos in 2010, has now become the responsibility of nuclear group, Rosatom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosatom
'A nuclear power unit makes it possible to reach Mars in a matter of one to one and a half months, providing capability for manoeuvring and acceleration,' Sergey Kirienko, head of Rosatom told RT .
'Today's engines can only reach Mars in a year and a half, without the possibility of return.'
Russia currently has used over 30 fission reactors in space, the US has flown only one - the SNAP-10A (System for Nuclear Auxiliary Power) in 1965.
Engineers at Nasa have also been drawing up plans to use nuclear thermal propulsion in a mission to Mars in 2033.
According to the space agency's design, uranium-235 nuclear reactions are used to heat liquid hydrogen inside a reactor, turning it into ionized hydrogen gas, or plasma.
This plasma is then channeled through a rocket nozzle to generate thrust.
Dr Stanely Borowski, an engineer at Nasa's John Glenn Research Centre, last year outlined how this could then be used to propel a space with its crew through space in a official Nasa paper.
He said the spacecraft, called Copernicus, would consist of separate cargo and crewed transfer vehicles, each powered by a nuclear thermal propuslion stage.
These would be constructed from a 'core' that use three engines each capable of producing thrust of around 25,000 lbs of force.
He estimates that these vehicles could make the 40 million mile trip to Mars within 100 days.
It took the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft carrying Nasa's Curiosity Rover to Mars 253 days to reach the red planet.
Writing in his paper, Dr Borowski said: 'The analysis presented here indicates transit time reductions as much as 50 per cent are possible.'
Nasa first began researching nuclear thermal rockets as part of its Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) programme in 1959.
The most powerful nuclear rocket engine ever tested was the Phoebus 2a, which was fired for 32 minutes in Nevada in 1968 as can be seen in the photo above
Nasa has been using nuclear material to power spacecraft for decades.
In 1960 a satellite programme called TRANSIT, used to guide missiles from space, was the first to use plutonium isotopes to create batteries.
These work by wrapping the plutonium with thermoelectrics, that turn the heat given off by the decaying isotope into electricity.
Nasa also used plutonium batteries on its failed Nimbus B1 satellite, which blew up on launch.
In 1972 and 1973 Nasa then launched its Pioneer space probes, which used 155-watt nuclear batteries to keep them powered as they travelled to the very edge of the solar system.
The Viking landers, which touched down on Mars for the first time in 1976, also used plutonium batteries to power their experiments.
The Voyager probes, which have become the first manmade objects to leave the solar system, also relied upon three plutonium-238 batteries that have allowed them to communicate with Earth for 36 years.
The Ulysses sun probe also used a nuclear battery to keep the spacecraft operating while it performed a slingshot around Jupiter.
The Galileo spaceprobe to Jupiter's moons also used two nuclear batteries to give it 570 watts of power.
The Cassini space probe to Saturn carried the largest nuclear battery every launched, weighing 72lbs.
In 1959, Nasa began work with the US Atomic Energy Commission to develop a nuclear powered rocket to carry astronauts into space, but the project was ended in 1973 at the same time as the Apollo space missions.
This means larger payloads of cargo can be carried on the spacecraft and they can also be made to travel far faster.
And unlike existing technology which uses defined trajectories, a nuclear engine also allows a spacecraft to manoeuvre throughout the flight.
The $274 million project, which was originally overseen by the space agency RosCosmos in 2010, has now become the responsibility of nuclear group, Rosatom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosatom
'A nuclear power unit makes it possible to reach Mars in a matter of one to one and a half months, providing capability for manoeuvring and acceleration,' Sergey Kirienko, head of Rosatom told RT .
'Today's engines can only reach Mars in a year and a half, without the possibility of return.'
Russia currently has used over 30 fission reactors in space, the US has flown only one - the SNAP-10A (System for Nuclear Auxiliary Power) in 1965.
Engineers at Nasa have also been drawing up plans to use nuclear thermal propulsion in a mission to Mars in 2033.
According to the space agency's design, uranium-235 nuclear reactions are used to heat liquid hydrogen inside a reactor, turning it into ionized hydrogen gas, or plasma.
This plasma is then channeled through a rocket nozzle to generate thrust.
Dr Stanely Borowski, an engineer at Nasa's John Glenn Research Centre, last year outlined how this could then be used to propel a space with its crew through space in a official Nasa paper.
He said the spacecraft, called Copernicus, would consist of separate cargo and crewed transfer vehicles, each powered by a nuclear thermal propuslion stage.
These would be constructed from a 'core' that use three engines each capable of producing thrust of around 25,000 lbs of force.
He estimates that these vehicles could make the 40 million mile trip to Mars within 100 days.
It took the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft carrying Nasa's Curiosity Rover to Mars 253 days to reach the red planet.
Writing in his paper, Dr Borowski said: 'The analysis presented here indicates transit time reductions as much as 50 per cent are possible.'
Nasa first began researching nuclear thermal rockets as part of its Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) programme in 1959.
The most powerful nuclear rocket engine ever tested was the Phoebus 2a, which was fired for 32 minutes in Nevada in 1968 as can be seen in the photo above
Nasa has been using nuclear material to power spacecraft for decades.
In 1960 a satellite programme called TRANSIT, used to guide missiles from space, was the first to use plutonium isotopes to create batteries.
These work by wrapping the plutonium with thermoelectrics, that turn the heat given off by the decaying isotope into electricity.
Nasa also used plutonium batteries on its failed Nimbus B1 satellite, which blew up on launch.
In 1972 and 1973 Nasa then launched its Pioneer space probes, which used 155-watt nuclear batteries to keep them powered as they travelled to the very edge of the solar system.
The Viking landers, which touched down on Mars for the first time in 1976, also used plutonium batteries to power their experiments.
The Voyager probes, which have become the first manmade objects to leave the solar system, also relied upon three plutonium-238 batteries that have allowed them to communicate with Earth for 36 years.
The Ulysses sun probe also used a nuclear battery to keep the spacecraft operating while it performed a slingshot around Jupiter.
The Galileo spaceprobe to Jupiter's moons also used two nuclear batteries to give it 570 watts of power.
The Cassini space probe to Saturn carried the largest nuclear battery every launched, weighing 72lbs.
In 1959, Nasa began work with the US Atomic Energy Commission to develop a nuclear powered rocket to carry astronauts into space, but the project was ended in 1973 at the same time as the Apollo space missions.
