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On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to enter space. Seeing our planet from his spaceship, he would have said, "I see the Earth! It's so beautiful. More than 57 years after this capital flight, space travel continues to generate feelings of excitement, wonder and respect. Today, the idea of sending humans to Mars is not such a far-fetched proposition. Elon Musk's SpaceX, for example, indicates that an "ambitious goal" is to send a cargo mission to the Red Planet in 2022. A second mission, carrying both a cargo and its crew, is targeted for 2024 For its part, NASA, in collaboration with the National Nuclear Security Administration of the Ministry of Energy is working on a nuclear reactor system that could "allow long-duration crewed missions on the moon, on Mars and at -of the". A small lightweight fission system dubbed "Kilopower," it can provide up to 10 kilowatts of electrical energy. According to NASA, this is enough "to manage several average households", continuously, during "at least 10 years". Lee Mason is NASA's leading technologist in energy storage and energy storage. He told CNBC's Sustainable Energy why it was so important to develop new sources of energy for spaceflight. "Most of our current spacecraft are powered by solar panels and batteries that depend, of course, on sunlight," he said. "But we want to go to missions in which there is no sunlight available – craters permanently shaded on the moon, the northern latitudes of Mars where sunlight is very limited," he said. added. "It's in these applications that Kilopower fits perfectly." In May 2018, NASA claimed to have demonstrated the success of the system, with the Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) experience, concluding with a full power test. 28 hours. According to NASA, this test simulated a mission and included reactor start-up, ramp-up, continuous operation and closure. "The test showed that the reactor could do exactly what it was supposed to do in a mission: to operate at the required power, to remain stable during all the operations and then to be able to supply all the necessary energy. for future specific missions, "said Mark Gibson, chief engineer of Kilopower.
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