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Mars rover mission will use pioneering nuclear power source (www.nature.com)

submitted 2 years ago by Buzztiger@feddit.nl to c/esa@feddit.nl

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Can I ask how everyone personally feels about using nuclear material for space exploration? For the rovers heating elements it will be just a couple of grams but for generating electricity via a RTG a spacecraft would require several kilograms of radioactive material.

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[–] evidences@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's fine, both of the last two US Rovers are powered off RTGs and several of the deep space probes run off RTGs also. For low Earth orbit and stuff closer to the sun it doesn't make sense but going further out and especially in a place like Mars where solar panels are prone to being covered in dust an RTG power source makes sense.

[–] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Exactly, for its intended use, it's really the best option we have.