Radioisotope Power System (RPS) research and development is vital to a variety of future NASA space science and exploration missions. The objectives of NASA’s current RPS activities are threefold: (1) develop new radioisotope power sources for missions that would launch by the end of the decade; (2) advance promising power conversion technologies to increase the specific power and performance of future RPS units; and (3) assess and facilitate the use of advanced RPS technologies for new mission applications. The program consists of two flight unit development projects, a set of 10 competitively‐selected research and development efforts in power conversion technology, focused research tasks on thermoelectric and Stirling energy conversion, and system analyses to support selection of technologies and evaluation of RPS for promising mission applications. This paper describes the content of the program, and discusses its future direction.


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    Title :

    NASA’s Program for Radioisotope Power System Research and Development



    Conference:

    SPACE TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS INT.FORUM-STAIF 2005: Conf.Thermophys in Micrograv;Conf Comm/Civil Next Gen.Space Transp; 22nd Symp Space Nucl.Powr Propuls.;Conf.Human/Robotic Techn.Nat'l Vision Space Expl.; 3rd Symp Space Colon.; 2nd Symp.New Frontiers ; 2005 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)


    Published in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 746 , 1 ; 429-436


    Publication date :

    2005-02-06


    Size :

    8 pages





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



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