Just in time for the new year, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have unveiled the fruits of a different kind of energy research: For the first time in nearly three decades, they've produced a special fuel that scientists hope will power the future exploration of deep space.
The fuel, known as plutonium-238, is a radioactive isotope of plutonium that's been used in several types of NASA missions to date, including the New Horizons mission, which reached Pluto earlier in 2015. While spacecraft can typically use solar energy to power themselves if they stick relatively close to Earth, missions that travel farther out in the solar system - where the sun's radiation becomes more faint - require fuel to keep themselves moving.
While other isotopes could theoretically also get the job done, plutonium-238 is ideal because of it's "unique combination of properties," said Rebecca Onuschak, a program director in the Department of Energy's Office of Space and Defense Power Systems. Most notably, it's safer to work with than many other types of radioactive materials.
But despite its importance for space exploration, the fuel has been out of production for close to 30 years now. It was originally produced at the Savannah River plant in South Carolina as a byproduct in the production of defense nuclear isotopes during the Cold War, Onuschak said. But production was discontinued in the late 1980s when the defense missions ended and the reactors were shut down.
Over the past several years, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have worked on designing new ways of creating plutonium-238. They've had to work with smaller reactors than the ones formerly used at Savannah River, said Bob Wham, a plutonium-238 technology integration manager at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Eventually, their labors paid off. On Dec. 22, the Department of Energy announced that researchers at Oak Ridge had managed to produce 50 grams of plutonium-238 - a feat that hasn't been performed since production was halted at Savannah River.
What's available now will still be enough to get NASA through its next planned Mars mission - the Mars 2020 rover - but if NASA wants to continue sending such missions as New Horizons into deep space, it will need new stores of fuel in the future.
In the meantime, NASA's Radioisotope Power Systems program will also be funding research into the development of more efficient MMRTGs - that nuclear battery used to supply electricity to spacecraft. According to the Department of Energy, researchers in the program are hoping to produce a new MMRTG that would be able to provide about 25 percent more power at the beginning of a mission and up to 50 percent more at the end.
The revived interest in fuel production and efficiency signals the start of a new era for space exploration - one which many enthusiastic scientists have had a hand in, Wham said.
"We've got a lot of great people in Oak Ridge that are working on [the project], as well as people in Idaho and Los Alamos national labs," he said. "It's great to know that there are that many people that are excited and enthusiastic about it."
© 2015 The Washington Post
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