just half a hundred ago this week , a Eruca sativa shot off from the California coast . It take the U.S. ’s first and only ( know ) space atomic reactor , SNAP-10A , which has been circling the Earth ever since and will continue to circle for another 3,000 years .
Back in the sixties , NASA ran a Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power ( SNAP ) program to analyse nuclear power ’s voltage in space geographic expedition . This programme sent up the first radioisotope thermoelectric generator , atechnology still used in space probeslike Voyager and Curiosity today . Radioisotope thermoelectric generators are n’t atomic reactor , though . They merely harness the heat from a decaying factor , such as plutonium-238 .
https://gizmodo.com/we-are-running-out-of-the-nuclear-fuel-that-powers-spac-1660333771
SNAP 10 - A was unlike . SNAP 1o - A was actually a function nuclear reactor with a controlled fission chemical reaction inside . It check enough uranium fuel to get up to 600 watts of power for a class . Twelve hours after take off on April 3 , 1965 , it reconcile into orbit 500 kilometers above Earth and humans back on the ground remotely switch on the reactor .
At first , things go well . But 43 days into the delegation , electric systems on the satellite carry it fail , and the nuclear reactor shut down . It ’s still up there orbit . give its current trajectory , NASA expect it to outride in ambit foranother 3,000 years .
But it ’s getting crowded up there . In November 1979 , SNAP-10A suffered an “ anomalous consequence , ” and the parent planet begins shed pieces . “ Six more anomalous event occur in the next 6 years , releasing nearly 50 trackable pieces . Release of radioactives is potential but not confirmed , ” scan aNASA report . These events were not document in more detail , but they may have included a collision .
Since SNAP-10A , NASA has toy with atomic reactor in infinite , most notably theSP-100starting the 70 . But funding issue and safety concernsterminated the program . The U.S. has only SNAP-1oA , but Russia has sent XII of satellites with nuclear reactors into distance , the most notorious of which crashed andscattered radioactive junk all over Canadain 1978 .
So that ’s one reason why sending atomic reactors into space is not such a majuscule idea .
[ DOE , NASA , h / t@CoreyPowell ]
Top image : DOE
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