NASA's First Nuclear-Powered Interplanetary Spacecraft Will Send Helicopters to Mars in 2028 (space.com)
- Reference: 0181149110
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/03/28/0630220/nasas-first-nuclear-powered-interplanetary-spacecraft-will-send-helicopters-to-mars-in-2028
- Source link: https://www.space.com/astronomy/mars/nasas-1st-nuclear-powered-interplanetary-spacecraft-will-send-skyfall-helicopters-to-mars-in-2028
> NASA will launch the Space Reactor-1 Freedom, the first nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft, to Mars before the end of 2028, demonstrating advanced nuclear electric propulsion in deep space. Nuclear electric propulsion provides an extraordinary capability for efficient mass transport in deep space and enables high power missions beyond Jupiter where solar arrays are not effective.
Steven Sinacore, NASA's program executive for Fission Surface Power who will also oversee the SR-1 Freedom mission, [2]emphasized to CNN that "On the ground the reactor is off. There's no radiation coming from it. It doesn't actually turn on until you're up in space, and that's where the radiation comes from." NASA says they aim to develop the capabilities required "for sustained exploration beyond the Moon and eventual journeys to Mars and the outer solar system."
And Space Reactor-1 Freedom will carry a fleet of tiny helicopters (much like [3] Ingenuity ) to explore Mars, [4]reports Space.com :
> Whereas Ingenuity was a technology demonstrator, however, the Skyfall fleet will have concrete tasks. Chief among them is scout: If all goes to plan, the little choppers will help NASA assess the potential of their target area (wherever that happens to be) to support human exploration. The Skyfall helicopters will carry cameras and ground-penetrating radar to scout a future landing site, to understand the slopes and hazards for human-scale landers," Steve Sinacore, the program executive for NASA's Space Reactors Office, said during the briefing. "They will also map and characterize the subsurface water ice to find out where the water ice deposits are, along with the size, depth and other important characteristics," he added...
>
> And that might not be the end of the line for SR-1 Freedom; NASA may decide to keep flying the spacecraft out into the solar system after it deploys the Skyfall choppers, according to Sinacore. The mission architecture, like much of NASA's exploration portfolio, is not yet finalized.
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-unveils-initiatives-to-achieve-americas-national-space-policy/
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/24/science/nasa-ignition-mars-spacecraft-moon-base
[3] https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/04/15/1953220/mars-helicopter-ingenuity-completes-50th-flight-after-two-years-on-mars
[4] https://www.space.com/astronomy/mars/nasas-1st-nuclear-powered-interplanetary-spacecraft-will-send-skyfall-helicopters-to-mars-in-2028
Too Compllex - Use solar-powered Balloon or Blimp (Score:2)
The title sez it all.
All for it, but would like to know the launch risk (Score:2)
If the launch fails at a point where it is say 50 miles up, and the reactor has been turned on prior to launch so that the core is now highly radioactive, it could rain down fission products on Europe or Africa. If the core has never been turned on, the risks might be mitigated.
Re: (Score:2)
> If the launch fails at a point where it is say 50 miles up, and the reactor has been turned on prior to launch.
The conops says that the reactor doesn't get turned on until after it's successfully placed in a high orbit.
A good feature of nuclear reactors is that they aren't dangerously radioactive until after you turn them on.
Queue up ... (Score:3)
> Send Helicopters to Mars
... Ride of the Valkyries.
First? No. (Score:2)
NASA has sent up several nuclear powered craft. The Voyagers, for example, and they were certainly interplanetary.
Why not yes? (Score:2)
> NASA has sent up several nuclear powered craft.
Right but what they are talking about is nuclear propulsion. Don't like how space.com writes? You can go right to the source instead of wasting other people's time. [1]https://www.nasa.gov/ignition/ [nasa.gov]
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/ignition/
Doubt (Score:2)
Trump in his first term was willing to go all-in on human spaceflight to mars...until he realized he couldn't get it done before the end of his term. Trump has always been interested in space stuff...but only if it's achievable within his term. This seems like a play to keep contractors employed and skills sharp until the next administration is seated, which will hopefully be willing to invest in goals longer than 4 years.
Re: (Score:2)
They have all that money allowcated to them so they have work extra hard to embezzle all that money somehow so they come up with all this impossible to achieve projects as shells to cancel later so it looks good on the accountants books
Re: Lol (Score:2)
Except how would this be impossible? This is a nuclear fission reactor, much like the reactors of submarines. So it's far from possible, I even wonder why they haven't done it much sooner.
Re: (Score:2)
> I even wonder why they haven't done it much sooner.
We didn't have good ion thrusters back in the 50s, 60s and 70s and after that launching nuclear reactors into space was considered a bad idea, not without reason. A nuke plus ion engines isn't a slam dunk either, ion engines produce very little thrust and reactors are heavy even if you don't have to bother shielding them much, so there's an efficiency threshold you need to hit before it's worthwhile.
NASA has realized that beating, or at least competing with