The U.S. and other spacefaring nations including Russia are engaged in a new space race to establish manned bases on the Moon and Mars in the near future. Russia is planning to launch a nuclear-powered space tug on a trip to Mars. A nuclear power plant will be sent to Mars to supply power for a manned base that they are planning.
The Martian reactor was proposed by The Arsenal Design Bureau, an offshoot of Russia’s space agency Roscomos. Arsenal is based in St. Petersburg and specializes in the production of space technology. The Mars’ reactor design would be based on Zeus which is a nuclear-powered space tug that the Russians plan to begin flight-testing in 2030.
An article in Sputnik, the state-owned Russian news agency, said, “Under Arsenal’s proposal, the reactor would be delivered to Red Planet aboard Zeus and floated down to its surface using a parachute system. After landing, the power plant would be activated to provide energy to a prospective Russian Martian base.”
The Zeus space tug that delivered the nuclear power plant to the Mars base could then be deployed to an orbit between the Sun and Mars to act as a transmission point between the Mars’ base and mission control on Earth.
Earlier this year, plans for the Zeus space tug were revealed by Alexander Bloshenko who is the chief of Roscosmos. During a presentation in Moscow, he said that the agency also plans to send the nuclear-powered space tug to Jupiter with stopovers at the Moon and Venus.
The Zeus’ reactor is designed to generate enough power to carry heavy cargo though space at high speed. The space tug will have the capacity to carry equipment and possibly astronauts hundreds of millions of miles. Several countries are considering similar technology to help them carry out long distance deep space missions.
Spacecraft currently have to rely on gravity or solar power to carry out long space flights. A manned journey to Mars and back using current technology could take as long as three years. According to NASA, nuclear-powered engines could reduce the time required for the journey by a year or more.
The U.S. hopes to launch a small nuclear-power plant attached to a lunar-lander to the Moon as early as 2027. It is part of an experiment to test out the fledgling technology. NASA has only sent one nuclear reactor into space which was launched in 1965. Russia has sent dozens of nuclear reactors into space.
NASA is working on the development of a small nuclear reactor called Kilopower for use on a manned Martian base. Kilopower reactors are planned to come in four sizes which will be able to produce from one to ten kilowatts of electrical power continuously for up to fifteen years. The fission reactor will burn uranium-235 to generate heat that is sent to Sterling converted with passive sodium heat pipes. Positive test results were announced for the Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) demonstration reactor in 2018.