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    Die NASA kündigt eine atomgetriebene Marsmission bis 2028 an

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    4. MechanicalGak on

      > NASA has announced it will launch a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars before the end of 2028. The effort would mark a world first—no interplanetary spacecraft mission has ever been powered by nuclear propulsion before—and a massive boost for potential missions that would go farther out into space and travel faster than traditional liquid-fueled craft could manage.

      > The space agency plans to the launch the spacecraft, called Space Reactor-1 Freedom, to the Red Planet, where it will deploy several helicopters to explore the surface. The helicopters, NASA said in a statement, will be modeled on Ingenuity, which flew as part of the Perseverance Mars rover’s mission on the planet.

      >According to NASA, the mission will prove nuclear propulsion can power spacecraft “and activate the industrial base for future fission power systems across propulsion, surface, and long-duration missions.” These could include missions to planets and other bodies in the outer solar system. Currently, exploring these distant worlds would be impossible with traditional craft, which would require massive amounts of liquid fuel to travel such distances. Only spacecraft that are small enough to be battery- or solar-powered, such as the Voyager and Juno missions, have reached these outer realms of our solar system.

      >Nuclear propulsion has long been touted as the solution to this problem, but it has never been proven to work in a mission. It is unclear what propulsion design NASA would use to test the system or if there will be any collaboration with industry.

    5. jakemhs on

      I’m announcing that Scarlett Johansson dumped her zero husband and will be dating me.

    6. MrKuub on

      “Space reactor-1 Freedom”

      God, a wealth of names to pick and _that’s_ what they settled on?

    7. UnknownBinary on

      >It is unclear what propulsion design NASA would use to test the system or if there will be any collaboration with industry.

      Two and a half years to design, build, test, and deploy a wholly novel propulsion system? Pull the other one.

    9. RadioFieldCorner on

      I’m all for this. I hate how pessimistic doomer people are here, in a space community.

    10. rocketsocks on

      I don’t think we should just be brainstorming random interplanetary science mission concepts and slamming them into the budget while picking some enormously unrealistic timeline out of thin air. This has reduced a lot of whatever confidence I had in Isaacman as an administrator. Interplanetary science missions should be founded on a firm science and engineering basis and they should go through a competitive review process. That’s substantially why we have had so much success over the years and have achieved so much great science. These aren’t just toys to play with, these are serious endeavors.

    11. gorbot on

      It’s just so annoying to see these things and have to tell yourself every time: at best this happens in 2030, and there’s a 40% chance it gets cancelled

      Can’t trust plans or dates anymore

    12. alvinofdiaspar on

      Is it nuclear-electric or nuclear thermal like the cancelled DRACO NASA-DARPA demo?

    14. Which_Material_3100 on

      Exciting times for NASA! Hoping the wealth of work gets spread around and doesn’t become a SpaceX monopoly

    15. Xenon009 on

      I very, very, very strongly doubt that, given they cancelled DRACO at the start of 2025, which was meant to be the big leap in nuclear rockets, approximately 30 minutes before it was meant to launch.

      I know DRACO was NTP, and this is NEP, but that’s still really not a good sign.

      (Full disclosure, I was a scientist working on NTP that lost their funding, so I’m very bitter)

    16. JimHeckdiver on

      Bullshit. There is no way the can pull that off in such a short time period. ESPECIALLY considering the cuts to the science programs.

    17. JusteJean on

      I get the nucclear propulsion engines. But for surface station… would8n’t it be better to deploy wind and solar equipment?

      Can we even use nuclear power without an abundance of water?

    18. 3MyName20 on

      It seems to me that NASA is starting with a date, 2028, and then defining new or modified projects that will have its first meaningful launch by that date. It is almost like doing it prior to the end of 2028 increases their chance of getting the project approved. I wonder which person, with the power to affect NASA’s budget, would desire an expensive NASA project complete a major, „hey look what I did“, milestone before the end of 20208. A real puzzler.

    22. ThePhatPhoenix on

      It’s about damn time.

      Though the deadline for this seems kinda insane.

    23. SkippytheBanana on

      It doesn’t surprise me when the remaining Pu238 supply for RTGs is basically nonexistent at this point.

    25. Somnambulist815 on

      I have to ask, since half this agency and the rest of the goverment has basically been privatized, are these announcements just another way of gaming the market? Do they track with SpaceX stock jumps?

    27. Hopsblues on

      So we are going to the moon and building a base, going to Mars…….Meanwhile we can’t even pay our TSA agents, fund security for the World Cup and build a ballroom….

    28. taktaga7-0-0 on

      They are trying to get our best and brightest killed tragically in front of the whole world. Everything Trump touches dies.

    29. Decronym on

      Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

      |Fewer Letters|More Letters|
      |——-|———|—|
      |[DARPA](/r/Space/comments/1s2ht0w/stub/oc8gzoe „Last usage“)|(Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency, DoD|
      |DoD|US Department of Defense|
      |[NERVA](/r/Space/comments/1s2ht0w/stub/oc8gzoe „Last usage“)|Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (proposed engine design)|
      |[NEV](/r/Space/comments/1s2ht0w/stub/oc88yzm „Last usage“)|Nuclear Electric Vehicle propulsion|
      |[NTP](/r/Space/comments/1s2ht0w/stub/oc88yzm „Last usage“)|Nuclear Thermal Propulsion|
      | |Network Time Protocol|
      | |Notice to Proceed|
      |[PPE](/r/Space/comments/1s2ht0w/stub/oc8e9ry „Last usage“)|Power and Propulsion Element|
      |[RTG](/r/Space/comments/1s2ht0w/stub/oc8ddvv „Last usage“)|Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator|

      Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.

      —————-
      ^([Thread #12268 for this sub, first seen 24th Mar 2026, 17:03])
      ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)

    30. whitelancer64 on

      Announcing grand plans is all fine and good, but the real trick is getting Congress to fund it.

      And that will be the true test of Jared Isaacman’s administration.

    31. Seanspeed on

      So Trump effectively cancels DARPA’s existing nuclear propulsion program last year, and now it’s being revived again a year later?

      Fucking hell, this administration is just a constant whirlwind of batshittery.

    34. DinerEnBlanc on

      If it happens in 2028, they’ll just be launching a bunch of people in a coffin into space.

    35. titaniansoy on

      Absolute farce. We have got to stop handing our future in space over to payment processing tycoons whose worldview seems to be driven by a semi-literate reading of sci-fi Spark Notes.

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