Why NASA wants to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon |

Main image: Artist concept of a new fission power system on the lunar surface. Credit: NASA

Everyone is talking about the moon. There will be 50 years this Christmas since Apollo 8 sailed for the first time on the moon – with the crew taking the famous Earthrise photos – and we will approach the 50th anniversary of the first landing. on Apollo 11 moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Can we go back? Should we go back? NASA knows we must probably go backwards, if only to use the Moon as a springboard for deeper solar system exploration missions. So we tried for years to create a nuclear reactor.

Now, it could have cracked with the compact, mobile and super-resistant Kilopower, which could allow missions in the deep space and human outposts on planets and moons of the solar system, like on Mars or Titan, the moon of Saturn.

What is Kilopower?

Kilopower is a light nuclear fission nuclear reactor developed by NASA and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the US Department of Energy. It works by dividing the atoms in its uranium 235 reactor core to generate energy in the form of heat converted into electricity by its high-efficiency Stirling engines. It can pump 10 kilowatts of electrical power continuously for at least 10 years, more than double what NASA thinks is needed to run an outpost on the Moon or Mars.

"Safe, efficient and abundant energy will be the key to robotic and human exploration in the future," said Jim Reuter, NASA's Acting Associate Administrator for Space Technology Mission Management (STMD) in Washington. "I think the Kilopower project will be an essential part of lunar power architectures and Mars as they evolve."

The technology was successfully demonstrated between November 2017 and March 2018 as part of the NASA KRUSTY experiment as part of the Kilopower Reactor project, based on Stirling technology.

How has Kilopower been tested?

If you take nuclear reactors in space during crew missions on the moon, on Mars and beyond, it's better to be safe. This is what the KRUSTY test is assured.

"We put everything we could in this reactor, in terms of nominal and normal operating scenarios, and KRUSTY was successful," said David Poston, chief reactor designer at NNSA's Los Alamos National Laboratory. .

The experiment included a simulated power reduction, failed engines and failed heat pipes, and resulted in a 28-hour, full-power test that simulated a mission. It is planned to use it for the first time in a space flight mission in 2020.

Why do we need nuclear energy on the moon?

Before saying something like "we should not pollute the spaces with nuclear waste", know that almost all the space missions you've heard of are using radioisotope thermoelectric generators, of which plutonium 238 is the source of electricity. This is true for everything from Apollo and Voyager to New Horizons and Cassini.

Moreover, the nights of the moon are long. If you have ever looked at the moon, you will know that it always shows us the same side. A complete orbit of the Earth takes 27 days during which it turns once, which is a moon day. The result is that the night at any place on the moon lasts two weeks.

"Kilopower allows us to perform high-powered missions and explore the craters of the moon," said Marc Gibson, Kilopower's chief engineer at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. "When we start sending astronauts for long stays on the Moon and other planets, it will require a new class of power we have never needed before."

Can not we use solar energy on the moon?

Although nights on the moon last two weeks, in theory there is an extremely efficient way to produce solar energy. The Japanese company Shimizu's concept is to build a massive belt of solar panels a few kilometers wide around the equator along 11,000 kilometers of the moon. It is estimated that half of this "solar belt" would still be exposed to the sun and that since the moon has no atmosphere, it is never cloudy. In theory, the production of solar energy would be five times more efficient than on Earth.

NASA or not on the moon?

It's a commitment that keeps changing with every new American president. The Trump 1 Space Policy Directive proposes robotic missions on the lunar surface before crewed missions, as well as a lunar orbital gateway to help astronauts on mission beyond the moon, on Mars or asteroids. NASA is asking private companies to develop new technologies to provide payloads on the moon.

What is the Lunar Orbital-Gateway platform?

The proposed lunar orbital platform-bridge (LOP-G) will be a space station in orbit, and not the Earth, but the Moon. NASA sees it as a "starting point" for crewed missions on both the Moon and Mars, although some think it is a waste of money.

"It's basically about building another orbital space station, a skill my colleagues and I have already demonstrated on the international space station," said former NASA pilot Terry Virts at a meeting of National Space Council in June. "Gateway will only slow us down, taking time and precious dollars away from the goal of returning to the lunar surface and finally flying to Mars."

The launch of LOP-G is scheduled for 2022 and housing modules will be added in 2023. The NASA space launch system rocket and Orion spacecraft should be ready by then.

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source: techradar.com