pace chief calls for Mars mission with atomic ship

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

RUSSIA should build a new nuclear-powered spaceship for prospective manned missions to Mars and other planets, the nation’s space chief said.
Anatoly Perminov said the project is challenging technologically, but could capitalise on the Soviet and Russian experience in the field.

He also said the preliminary design could be ready by 2012, and then it would take nine more years and cost 1
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7 billion rubles (about £360 million) to build the ship.

“The project is aimed at implementing large-scale space exploration programs, including a manned mission to Mars, interplanetary travel, the creation and operation of planetary outposts,” Mr Perminov said.

The proposal has the backing of president Dmitry Medvedev who has urged the government to find the money.

The ambitious plans contrast with Russia’s slow progress on building a replacement to its mainstay spacecraft – the Soyuz.

Russia is using Soyuz booster rockets and capsules, developed 40 years ago, to send crews to the International Space Station. The development of a replacement rocket and a prospective spaceship with a conventional propellant has dragged on with no end in sight.

Despite its continuing reliance on the old technology, Russia stands to take a greater role in space exploration in the coming years. Nasa’s plan to retire its shuttle fleet next year will force the United States and other nations to rely on the Russian spacecraft to ferry their astronauts to and from the International Space Station until Nasa’s new manned ship becomes available.

Igor Lisov, a Moscow-based expert on Russian space programme, said the prospective ship would use a nuclear reactor to run an electric rocket engine.

“It will be quite efficient for flight to Mars,” he said.

Mr Lisov said Soviet work on a nuclear-powered electric rocket engine dates back to the 1960s when Soviet engineers began developing plans for a manned flight to Mars.

He said Russia’s experience in building nuclear-powered satellites would also help develop the new spaceship.

Stanley Borowski, a senior engineer at Nasa specialising in nuclear rocket engines, said they have many advantages for deep space missions, such as to take astronauts to Mars. In deep space, nuclear rockets are twice as fuel-efficient as conventional rockets, he said.

Nasa has used small amounts of plutonium in deep space probes, including those to Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto and heading out of the solar system.

HOW THE NEW CRAFT WOULD WORK

THE proposed next generation of Russian spacecraft would most likely use conventional chemical rockets.

Once free from the Earth they would switch to an electrical propulsion unit powered by a nuclear reactor.

The technology has already been used in Cold War era Soviet military satellites which had small nuclear reactors that produced just a few kilowatts of power and had a lifespan of a year.

The new nuclear-powered spaceships would have a megawatt-class nuclear reactor with a far longer lifespan, capable of sending craft deeper into space.

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