The photo is sourced from Rolls-Royce
The future reactor will be tiny by the standards of reactors used on Earth: it will be 300 centimetres (cm) long and just over 100 cm wide. This solution will make it possible to send spacecraft to the south pole of the Moon, where some areas remain untouched by sunlight. This makes them inaccessible to solar power technologies that have been used in outer space over the past half-century. For instance, the first lunar rover (Lunokhod) was equipped with 180-watt solar panels: electricity was supplied to a silver-cadmium storage device with a capacity of 200 ampere-hours, which provided DC power to all onboard systems.
Solar energy is also being used in the Earth’s orbit. For instance, the International Space Station (ISS) has been equipped with thin-film solar panels since 2017; in these panels, the role of the ribbon is played by composite carbon fibre, which makes it possible for cells to be compressed into a roll during transportation and unrolled when in orbit. Another source of power supply in outer space is hydrogen: for example, the Soyuz–Apollo station was supplied with power not only via solar panels, but also via fuel cells, which converted the chemical energy of hydrogen into electricity.
The development of a new reactor could also find application on Earth, where small-scale power units will be used to supply energy to remote areas in the near future. For instance, Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries plans to commence the serial production of 3×4 metre reactors with a capacity of 0.5 megawatts (MW) and a weight of 40 tons in the 2030s. The units will be shaped like a capsule that can be buried underground. The microreactors will be fueled by highly enriched uranium, which will not require replacement throughout its 25-year period of operation. Uranium will act as a coolant instead of water, which will ensure a high level of safety: in the event of an accident, excess thermal energy will dissipate due to the natural cooling of the environment.
