NASA has plans to put a nuclear reactor on the lunar surface and is looking for ideas on how to pull it off. The fission power source would come in handy to support extended human presence on the Moon, before future manned missions to explore Mars.
The US space agency is working with the government’s top nuclear research lab – the Department of Energy’s National Laboratory in Idaho, to build a power source by the end of 2030. “Providing a reliable, high-power system on the moon is a vital next step in human space exploration, and achieving it is within our grasp,” said Sebastian Corbisiero, the Fission Surface Power Project lead at the lab.
Conditions for development set
A nuclear reactor would offer required power regardless of conditions on either the Moon or Mars and will be developed on Earth before being sent into space.
“I expect fission surface power systems to greatly benefit our plans for power architectures for the Moon and Mars and even drive innovation for uses here on Earth,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
The space agency says that proposals for the reactor should include plans for a uranium-fueled reactor core, a system to convert nuclear power into usable energy, a system for thermal management that keeps the reactor cool, and a distribution system offering over 40 kilowatts of continuous electric power for a decade.
Reactor design should be detachable
It should be able to turn itself on and off without needing a human touch and be able to operate from the deck of a lunar lander. The reactor should be designed in a way that it could be removed from the lander, run on a mobile system, and be transported to the site where it will operate.
The reactor will have to fit inside an 18ft long cylinder and shouldn’t weigh over 13,2000 pounds. NASA says that all proposals for the project should be submitted by January 19. No humans have visited the lunar surface since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, but the space agency’s Artemis project aims to put the first woman and person of color on the Moon and aims to send the first flight in 2025.
