(updated below)
On January 19, 2006 NASA successfully launched the New Horizons spacecraft on a mission to Pluto. It will fly by the ninth planet on July 14, 2015 before proceeding into the Kuiper Belt.
New Horizons is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) fueled by plutonium-238. The natural heat of decay of the plutonium-238 fuel is converted to about 200 watts of electricity by means of thermoelectric cells.
“Since 1961, the United States has successfully flown 41 radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) and one reactor to provide power for 24 space systems,” reported Gary L. Bennett in a newly updated history of space nuclear power (pdf).
“The development and use of nuclear power in space has enabled the human race to extend its vision into regions that would not have been possible with non-nuclear power sources,” wrote Bennett, a former Energy Department and NASA official who devoted much of his career to the development of space nuclear power sources.
See “Space Nuclear Power: Opening the Final Frontier” by Gary L. Bennett, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics paper number AIAA-2006-4191, presented at the 4th International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, June 2006 (posted with the author’s permission).
Update: And see, relatedly, “Mission of Daring: The General-Purpose Heat Source Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator” (pdf) by Gary L. Bennett and James J. Lombardo, et al, (AIAA-2006-4096, also presented at the 4th IECEC, June 2006.
Satellite imagery of RAF Lakenheath reveals new construction of a security perimeter around ten protective aircraft shelters in the designated nuclear area, the latest measure in a series of upgrades as the base prepares for the ability to store U.S. nuclear weapons.
It will take consistent leadership and action to navigate the complex dangers in the region and to avoid what many analysts considered to be an increasingly possible outcome, a nuclear conflict in East Asia.
Getting into a shutdown is the easy part, getting out is much harder. Both sides will be looking to pin responsibility on each other, and the court of public opinion will have a major role to play as to who has the most leverage for getting us out.
How the United States responds to China’s nuclear buildup will shape the global nuclear balance for the rest of the century.