Nuclear Mars Rover | Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator

http://www.SpaceChronology.com

Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech (video)

Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator converts energy from plutonium into electricity.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[Matss0n]

Wiki says there will only be enough power for 687 earth days on the rover but the MMRTG is said to produce 125w at the beginning falling to 100w after 14 years.

Why cant they shut down some equipment on the robot and run it for longer than 2 years?

[SpaceChronologyCom]

Primary mission will end in 2 years, the rover will go on for many more after that, during the so-called extended mission.

[kjcsinger]

Let's all just hope you guys get that thing out of our atmosphere intact.

[SpaceChronologyCom]

Done.

[geobible]

I like it BUT !!! I do not like the idea of sending anything that is harmful to another planet that can hurt people of that planet {YES} I said people on Mars because I have been trying to tell you for years of a discovery of mine and you ignore me. I discovered over 30 years ago how to tell if there ever was life on another planet including a way to see images from the past that also works here on Earth so I do know it works. Recently I found ther is Humans under ground on Mars and on Titan.

[SpaceChronologyCom]

There are no people on Mars.

[Stephen Brown]

How is the M-M-R-T-G cooled? Does it need cooling or is it self regulating?

[nakile]

RTGs aren't like batteries or tanks of fuel in that if you conserve energy it goes farther since your using less. The plutonium-238 (the "sizzle" type) in the RTG will be undergoing nuclear decay and generating a steady, yet slowly decreasing amount of energy over the next decades, regardless of the rovers electrical and heat demands. So contrary to what we're use to, the less energy that NASA uses, the more energy they waste since the RTG is going to generate the energy anyway.

[dalriada842]

Never mind. Looking at the power these things can produce, it would have to be enormous! :( What about a shorter lived isotope instead though?

[dalriada842]

Would RTGs be practical as a power source in an electric car? Current battery technology sucks! The RTG would have to be able to survive a crash intact of course. I can't see the world weaning itself from fossil fuel without something like this. The sealed unit could be swapped out and recycled every few years or so.

[Alejandro Medina]

RTG are amazing, because you could think "wow nuclear power, so advanced" but its a kind of simple idea, transform natural heat of the source in electricity.

[james bond]

did curiosity powered only by neuclear fuel

[helicoptered]

pick it back up

[CrudeDude]

Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.468 billion years.