The Russian space agency Roscosmos unveiled, on May 22, an interplanetary mission project with a probe powered by nuclear electricity.
This module called Zeus should take off in 2030 for a trip to the Moon, Venus then Jupiter for a total of 50 months, reports
Futura-Sciences
.
According to information from the Sputnik agency, the 22-ton satellite will be powered by a 500 kilowatt "mini-nuclear reactor".
This Zeus module will be launched using the Angara-A5V launcher from the Vostochny base, in south-eastern Siberia.
Missions of this type already carried out in the past
This will be the first project of this nuclear module called TEM under which a contract of 4.17 billion rubles (46.5 million euros) was signed in December 2020 by the Russian space agency Roscosmos .
Thanks to nuclear energy, the Russians want to be able to benefit from a long-term energy source that will also allow them to go to hidden regions of the Sun during long missions.
This type of mission using nuclear energy to carry out nuclear exploration projects has already been attempted in the past.
Indeed, the USSR had launched 32 satellites powered by nuclear energy between 1970 and 1988. But major problems had been noted at the time, in particular in 1977 when radioactive debris from the Kosmos 954 satellite fell overhead. from Canada.
Science
Space: Canada wants to send a rover to the moon within five years
High-Tech
Mars: Kites to produce energy on the red planet?
Science
Jupiter
Moon
Space
Russia
Probe