On April 3 , 1965 , NASA launch the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power 10A ( SNAP10A ) , the first nuclear galvanizing propulsion arrangement ever fired into distance . While in reach , the ion pusher organisation was powered by a space - worthynuclear reactor . Now , intimately 60 long time afterwards , the US is planning to launch a atomic nuclear reactor into space once again .

SNAP10A , designed to be capable of lay out a minimum of500 wattsfor up to one year or longer , only operated for 43 days , before being exclude down due to a faulting in theAgenaspacecraft . Since then , no other nuclear reactors have been send by the US to keep it company on its predicted4,000 - year orbit , and only a few were launched by the Soviet Union .

Now , decades later , the US Air Force Research Laboratory is fund a fresh spacecraft , paying Lockheed Martin , SpaceNukes , and BWX Technologies$33.7 millionto design and develop a new atomic ballistic capsule as part of the Joint Emergent Technology Supplying On - Orbit Nuclear ( JETSON ) High Power platform .

Space is , famously , quite self-aggrandizing . To research it , you ’ll need a bunch of zip . This might not be a vast trouble if you are sending aprobe to the Sun , give that it ’s a fully grown ball of harvestable energy for any investigation sensible enough to pack solar panels . But for missions where the Sun is n’t so secretive , and possibly even for crew missions to Mars and beyond , the US is hoping that nuclear - powered ballistic capsule will be the answer . Though cryptic space probes like Voyager 1 and 2 used radioisotope thermoelectric generators , these usedecaying plutoniumto generate electrical energy , more like a atomic shelling than a nuclear - powered trade .

Solar arrays , Lockheed Martin stated in apress release , only generate around six lightbulbs worth of energy . JETSON will use a nuclear fission reactor to sire heat , which is then transferred to the Stirling engines to produce between 6 and 20 kilowatts of electricity . The company pronounce this is four multiplication the ability of conventional solar array , without the added need to be in continuous sun .

The project is presently in the preliminary plan review phase , with Bob Hope of go to the critical stage shortly .