NASA has revealed plans to build a nuclear-powered rocket that could send astronauts to Mars in just 45 days.
The agency, which collaborated with the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to design the rocket, published (opens in a new tab) on Tuesday (Jan. 24) that it could build an operational nuclear rocket engine as soon as 2027.
NASA’s current rocket systems (including the Space Launch System that last year sent the Artemis 1 rocket on a historic trip back to the moon) are based on a very old chemical propulsion system – where an oxidizer (which provides more oxygen to burn) is mixed with combustible rocket fuel to create a combustible propellant. A proposed nuclear system, on the other hand, would use a chain reaction from fissioning atoms to fuel nuclear power. fission a machine that is three times or more efficient and can reduce Mars flight times to a fraction of the current seven months, according to the agency.
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“DARPA and NASA have a long history of great collaboration in developing the latest technologies for our goals, from the Saturn V rocket that first landed humans on the Moon to robotics and to fill the satellites,” Stephanie Tompkins (opens in a new tab)director of DARPA, said in a statement (opens in a new tab). “Space is essential to modern commerce, scientific discovery and national security. The ability to achieve continuous advances in space technology … will be critical to the successful delivery of cargo to the moon. and soon, and finally, people on Mars.”
NASA began its research into nuclear powered engines in 1959, which eventually led to the design and construction of the Nuclear Engine for a Rocket Vehicle (NERVA), a powerful nuclear reactor that was successfully tested. In the world. Plans to fire the engine into space, however, were put on hold after the 1973 end of the Apollo Era and severe program funding cuts.
Nuclear engines produce less energy than their chemical counterparts, but they can burn more efficiently for longer – making rockets move faster. Reactors work by generating electricity that ejects electrons from noble gases such as xenon and krypton, which are blasted out of the spacecraft as a beam of ions that propel the rocket forward.
The Artemis 1 mission was the first of three missions testing hardware, software and ground systems aimed at one day establishing a lunar base and transporting the first humans to Mars. This first test flight will be followed by Artemis 2 and Artemis 3 in 2024 and 2025/2026, respectively. Artemis 2 will carry out the same journey as Artemis 1 but with a crew of four, and Artemis 3 will send the first woman and the first person of color to land on the moon, in the south of the moon.
“It’s history because now we’re going back to space, to deep space, with a new generation.” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said after the launch of Artemis 1. “One that marks a new technology, a new kind of astronaut, and a vision of the future. This is a program to return to the moon to learn, to live , to invent, to create in order to explore more.”