INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Main image: Artist's concept of new fission power system on the lunar surface
Credit: NASAEveryone's talking about the Moon
to the 50th anniversary ofApollo 11's first moon landing and moonwalk for Neil Armstrong andBuzz Aldrin.Can we go back Should we go back
NASA knows we probably have to go back, if only to use the Moon as an off-Earth stepping stone to enable deeper solar system exploration
missions, so it's spent years trying to create a nuclear reactor that can be operated there.Now it may have cracked it with the compact,
mobile and super-tough Kilopower, which could enable deep space missions and human outposts on planets and moons in the solar system, such
as on Mars or on Saturn's moon Titan.What is KilopowerKilopower is a lightweight, mobile nuclear fission reactor developed by NASA and the
It works by splitting atoms in its uranium-235 reactor core to generate energy as heat that's converted into electricity by its
high-efficiency Stirling engines
It can pump out 10 kilowatts of electrical power continuously for at least 10 years, more than twice as much as NASA thinks will be needed
to run an outpost on the Moon or Mars.It's almost 50 years since the iconic Earthrise photo was taken by Apollo 8's Frank Borman
demonstrated between November 2017 and March 2018 as part of NASA's Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) experiment.How
was Kilopower testedKilopower is needed because lunar nights last for 14 Earth days
experiment included simulated power reduction, failed engines and failed heat pipes, and culminated with a 28-hour, full-power test that
It's planned to first be used on a spaceflight mission in 2020.Why do we need nuclear power on the moonBefore you say something like 'we
shouldn't be polluting space with nuclear waste', know that almost every single space mission you've even heard of has used radioisotope
thermoelectric generators, which have Plutonium-238 as their electricity source
That's true for everything from Apollo and Voyager to New Horizons and Cassini.Kilopower assembly at the Nevada National Security Site in
If you've ever looked at the moon, you'll know that it always shows us the same side
One full orbit of Earth takes it 27 days, during which it rotates once, so that's effectively one Moon day
Japanese company Shimizu has a concept to construct a massive belt of solar panels a few kilometres wide around the moon's entire
11,000-kilometre-long equator
It reckons that half of this 's olar belt' would always be in sunshine, and given that the moon doesn't have an atmosphere, so is never
cloudy, solar power generation would theoretically be five times more efficient than it is on Earth.Is NASA going to the Moon or notIt's
an on again, off again commitment that keeps changing with every new US president
The Trump administration's Space Policy Directive 1 proposes robotic missions on the lunar surface ahead of crewed missions, as well as a
Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway to help astronauts on missions beyond the moon, either going to Mars or to asteroids
NASA is asking private companies to develop new tech to deliver payloads to the Moon.What is the Lunar Orbital Platform-GatewayThe Lunar
Orbital Platform-Gateway will be like an International Space Station for the moon
essentially calls for building another orbital space station, a skill my colleagues and I have already demonstrated on the International
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