Putin is looking for funds to build a nuclear spacecraft, – Bloomberg

For more than ten years, Russia has been working on the creation of a transport module with a nuclear power plant for use in space.

President Vladimir Putin called on his government to find funds for the development of a plan to create a spacecraft with a nuclear power plant. As Bloomberg reports , this is part of Russia’s efforts to strengthen its space program despite sanctions imposed by the United States.

According to Putin, Russia has “competences that other countries don’t have, but we need to pay special attention to develop them.”

It is noted that to date there has not been a single space demonstration of a nuclear heat engine. For more than ten years, Russia has been working on the creation of a transport module with a nuclear power plant for use in space. Last year, the US Department of Defense and NASA chose Lockheed Martin Corp. for the design and development of the first nuclear fusion rocket engine to be tested in space, as part of a program called DRACO.

There is a precedent for the use of nuclear energy in space missions and in other remote areas of the Earth. Thus, the US used plutonium-238 as a power source for computers, scientific instruments and other equipment on space missions, while Russia used other radioactive materials to power remote beacons and nuclear submarines.

Russia’s attempts to conquer space

It was previously reported that the first attempt of the Russian Federation after the collapse of the USSR to land a device on the moon was defeated – the Luna-25 satellite , which was supposed to land on the south pole of the moon, collided with its surface on August 20, 2023 and ceased to exist.

(C)UNIAN 2024