Africa-Press – Cape verde. Luxury automobile maker Rolls-Royce has announced plans to build a miniature nuclear reactor to power a Mars-bound spaceship, saying it will put the first such device into space by 2029.
The project is being undertaken in conjunction with the UK Space Agency, which aims to make the island nation into a major player in the burgeoning new space race. The two announced their partnership on a nuclear spaceship engine in 2021.
Rolls-Royce’s micro-reactor, which will run on uranium and be similar to that used on submarines, is hoped to be able to power a spacecraft bound for Mars or another world. Competitors, such as the US-based SpaceX, have chosen to use chemical fuel for the Mars-bound spacecraft they are developing.
Although known for its luxury automobiles, Rolls-Royce long ago turned itself into a multi-domain engineering firm, building everything from aircraft engines to nuclear reactors. The company is also working on a small modular nuclear reactor that uses light water (H2O) rather than the heavy water (D2O) most typically used to moderate nuclear reactions.
“A Rolls-Royce Micro-Reactor is designed to use an inherently safe and extremely robust fuel form,” the company said on Twitter.
Space probes have been powered by radioactive fuel for decades, but have typically used the heat generated by nuclear decay, although both the US and Soviet Union tested placing nuclear reactors in orbit.
Both the US and China have said they aim to place nuclear reactors on the moon before the decade is out, as part of the beginnings of a permanent human base on the lunar satellite.
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