Questions tagged [rtg]
RTG is a Radio-isotope Thermo-electric Generator. It uses the heat generated by the decay of a radioactive material to generate power. Often the heat as well, to hold off the cold temperatures in space or other planets.
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Are there any efforts towards producing 148-Gd as an alternative to 238-Pu for RTGs?
After 05:16 in Real Engineering's March 22, 2025 video NASA'S Plutonium Problem there's a discussion of how the various radioisotope options for Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) was ...
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In retrospect, should they have provided more RTG fuel and a more powerful radio for Voyager?
Adding extra RTG fuel disks would increase the weight of the entire vessel only slightly, but give it a much, much longer lifetime.
It would also allow for the instruments to still be running, and for ...
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Is the Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy allowed to launch nuclear material?
Certain missions, like the various NASA Mars Rovers (Curiosity, Perseverance, Opportunity, etc.) contained either RTGs for power generation or RTHs for heating purposes, and these contain nuclear ...
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Why use plutonium when sunlight is everywhere? Any proposals to use concentrated solar power instead of Pu238 as a heat source for TGs?
Why use plutonium when sunlight is everywhere? The case for powering thermoelectric generators (TG) with concentrated solar rather than plutonium:
Spacecraft operating in the inner Solar System ...
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Apollo 13's plutonium RTG re-entry into the Tonga Trench: Good shootin' or good luck?
Plutonium powered RTGs are encased to survive re-entry. According to the Wikipedia article on Apollo 13
RTGs were used to power … the scientific experiments left
on the Moon by the crews of Apollo …...
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How would we power probes or spaceships over hundered or thousands of years?
There are different optimal power sources for probes and spaceships for different kinds of missions.
Solar
Well suited for many missions in the inner solar system. Only limited degradation over time ...
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Efficiency of "liquid cooled" RTG
One of the big problems in the vacuum of space is getting heat away. RTG that rely on a temperature differential from the hot to the "cold" side to produce electricity will probably suffer a ...
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Apollo ALSEP RTG shorting switch to prevent overheat of the RTG?
I found these lines in the Apollo 14 Lunar Surface Journal:
116:07:37 Mitchell: Houston, the current reading is 8.
116:07:42 McCandless: Understand 8 amperes before pressing the
(shorting) switch.
...
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How many watts of electricity are available for systems during a Mars transit?
The 40+ year old Voyager probes have three Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) currently producing 249 watts, losing around 4 watts per year. They began with 470 Watts.
The Curiosity Rover's ...
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Is lunar exploration going to need a whole heck of a lot of RTGs? If so, have they started firing up the RTG-making reactors yet?
The November 16, 2021 Northrop Grumman Press Release Highly specialized team to design vehicle for sustainable lunar surface mobility operations begins
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC), is ...
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Why did Cassini require so much more power than other probes?
Inspired by the comment by Nick S on this answer by Organic Marble, what made Cassini require so much power?
An excerpt from the aforementioned answer:
The flight units used by mission, with power ...
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Why are there four RTGs in a row sitting in this room? What are they waiting for? Were they built together and stored for separate launches?
The extremely cool NASA JPL video Triumph at Saturn (Part I) is really worth a watch and/or listen.
At about 17:40 it discusses Cassini's RTG and at ...
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How can they be so sure that Dragonfly will "freeze to death" as opposed to simply (and eventually) running out of RTG power? (238Pu decay)
tl;dr: "...will probably freeze to death...before it runs out of power..." If power keeps it from freezing to death and it hasn't run out of power, why would it freeze to death?
Space.com's ...
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Does curiosity's RTG generate neutrons as this NASA CheMin X-ray detection system webpage suggests? If so, how?
mars.nasa.gov's CheMin for Scientists (found here) says (about half-way down):
Detection of X-ray Photons by the CCD
CheMin will use a 600 × 600 E2V CCD-224 frame transfer imager operated with a 600 ...
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Does an RTG generate power instantly or slowly? [duplicate]
The Mars rovers Perseverance and Curiosity use RTG to generate power and they move slowly...
Does it produce enough enery so that we can use it on electric cars that go fast?
And will the cars go fast ...
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