If all goes well, at some point in the next decade, an American lander will carry a small nuclear reactor to reach the moon base. Inside this reactor, a boron control rod will stick into a pile of uranium to open the nuclear chain reaction, split uranium atoms and release heat. Next, this heat will be transmitted to a generator, which will bring light to the moon base. NASA has gone through half a century of efforts to create a nuclear reactor that can be used in space and has just completed a new design test. The new reactor, called Kilopower, will likely have its next milestone in space flight sometime in the 2020s. Kilopower was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy and it marks the first new nuclear reactor built in the United States in 40 years. It has the potential to change the way space is explored, especially in the permanent human outpost of the solar system. Current space missions use fuel cells, nuclear batteries or solar energy. But the night of the moon lasts for two weeks, and the intensity of the sun on Mars is only 40% of the earth's intensity. Jim Reuter, deputy administrative assistant of NASA’s space technology department, said: “When we go to the moon or eventually to Mars, we will probably need a lot of energy that we cannot rely on the sun, especially if we want to live there.†Kilopower is a small, lightweight fission reactor capable of supplying up to 10 kilowatts of electricity. NASA said four 10-kilowatt Kilopower reactors will provide enough power for Mars or a human base on the moon. According to experts in nuclear energy research, Claudio Bruno, a professor of engineering at the University of Connecticut, the 40 kilowatts can meet the needs of 3 to 8 normal American families. He added: "40 kWh is roughly equivalent to 60 hp, and you may think it is not enough. In fact, if you want to do anything useful, especially if the Moon or Mars mission is a manned mission, you need to The energy will be more, but every time in the past, there will be people protesting against the deadly danger of nuclear power. This is the first time in decades that people talk about using nuclear reactors to provide energy for generators, so this is the first positive signal." In space exploration, there are two main ways of using nuclear energy: making electricity or generating propulsion. Kilopower will be used to generate electricity just like the power station on Earth. The electricity it generates is likely to exceed the needs of a single spacecraft, which makes it more suitable for larger planet outposts. Kilopower will also be used to drive the spacecraft, mainly to provide energy for the ion engine, but NASA has not yet decided to use this technology. Kilopower has been developing since 2012, but its effect far exceeds that of NASA's auxiliary nuclear power system (SNAP) in the 1960s. The SNAP project has developed two nuclear power systems, one is a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which can capture energy from radioactive decay to provide heat and electricity. Dozens of deep spacecraft have used the RTG system, which includes the curiosity rover on Mars and the new Pluto detector that is exploring the dwarf planet in the outer solar system. Another power system of the SNAP project is the fission reactor system, which generates energy through atom splitting. This technology is the same as the power system used by nuclear submarines. NASA launched a nuclear power plant named SNAP-10A in April 1965. The nuclear power plant worked for 43 days and generated 500 watts of electricity before a failure occurred. It is still in Earth orbit and it is now becoming space debris. In the 1960s and 1970s, NASA also conducted research on nuclear rocket propulsion technology in the NERVA project. This technology uses a nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen and expel gas through nozzles, similar to the thrust produced by conventional rocket-fired fuels. But this project ended in 1973. According to data from the World Nuclear Commission, Russia has launched more than 30 fission reactors into space. After U.S. President Nixon canceled NASA’s research on nuclear power propulsion technology in 1973, Russia also abandoned its own project. Bruno said: "All research was halted in 1973. By 2018, most people who had participated in that project either retire or die. Although we still have reports, the report will not speak and the researchers will be able to." The study was thawed in 2012. NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy conducted preliminary tests on Kilopower's predecessor (DUFF experiment) and produced 24 watts of electricity. DUFF uses a heat pipe to cool the reactor, and for the first time demonstrated the application of the Stirling engine to convert reactor heat into electrical energy. After the DUFF test, NASA authorized the start of the Kilopower project, which was the first time in 2014 to receive research funding. The latest tests conducted by NASA and the Department of Energy on Kilopower began in November 2017 and continued until March this year. During the test, the Kilopower reactor was tested for 28 hours of full power, then turned off and cooled. Marc Gibson, chief engineer at the Kilopower project at NASA's Glenn Research Center, said that the reactor is operating at 800 degrees Celsius and generates more than 4 kilowatts of electricity. NASA and the Department of Energy stated that the Kilopower reactor is safer than previous versions because it operates in different ways. With the help of boron control rods and neon reflectors, the fission chain reaction is controlled and can even be stopped. According to the director of the Kilopower project, Patrick McClure of the US Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory said: "If the reactor or rocket explodes on the launch pad, the uranium 235 in the core will not emit more radiation to people one kilometer away. Radiation from the natural environment. This is only the worst plan. We do not think there is a chance that the reactor will fail in the event of a launch." According to David Poston, chief reactor designer at Los Almos National Laboratory, a similar reactor can provide power to the ion thruster, providing the spacecraft with the power to fly. According to Bruno, however, the amount of raw material required to initiate a fission chain reaction likely means that the reactor will be large and heavy and will not be practically used. NASA proposed a new uranium nuclear heat engine concept, which is similar to the technology used in current chemical fuel rockets. However, the nuclear thermal propulsion system project launched in August 2017 did not achieve such progress as Kilopower. Most nuclear-powered spacecraft use RTG systems to generate electricity by collecting the heat generated by decay. However, the energy efficiency of RTG is extremely low. In addition, the raw material supply of ceria is insufficient. After a 30-year gap, the U.S. Department of Energy resumed production of plutonium 238 from 2015, but currently U.S. stocks are only enough to provide energy for NASA's 2020 Mars rover, and it may be able to support one or two trips. The potential task of the outer solar system. Kilopower can be used as a substitute, but government officials and experts believe that there is a great possibility. Gibson said: "From the energy point of view, we started with the RTG project. We hope this project will enable us to achieve more uses, such as deep space exploration, so you will need thousands of watts of electricity supply. In other words, humans need more than ten to hundred times more energy than a single Kilopower reactor to operate on the moon or on Mars. But Poston said that the standardized design of the reactor can be easily scaled to meet those needs. Bruno added that the Kilopower reactor is an important step in building nuclear power plants available in space. It is very likely that the reactor will be tested in space. NASA has not yet licensed such a project, but at a press conference earlier this month, Reuters said it will be working on how to conduct such a test flight in the next 18 months. One possibility is to use a lunar spacecraft to transport a small Kilopower reactor, which may be developed in NASA’s latest moon exploration mission. Poston said: "Successful ground testing is important for the future of human space exploration. We have verified that this technology concept is now available to NASA. For me, the most exciting thing for me is its potential applications. In the true sense, this is the first step we have taken in the research field of fission energy technology available in space."
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