Title: Plutonium-238 to help power Perseverance on Mars
Headings: Plutonium-238 to help power Perseverance on Mars
Plutonium-238 to help power Perseverance on Mars
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Content: Plutonium-238 to help power Perseverance on Mars
July 29, 2020
Plutonium-238 to help power Perseverance on Mars
by Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The Perseverance rover, headed for Mars this summer, carries a plutonium isotope produced at ORNL, the first domestic production in about 30 years. As it decays, Pu-238 will power the rover and its instruments across the planet. Credit: NASA
After its long journey to Mars beginning this summer, NASA's Perseverance rover will be powered across the planet's surface in part by plutonium produced at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "Mars 2020 will be the first NASA mission that uses ORNL-produced plutonium-238," said Alan Icenhour, associate laboratory director for nuclear science and engineering at ORNL. " This accomplishment represents countless hours of work by dedicated ORNL staff, and it's rewarding to see this work come to fruition. Helping NASA in its mission to Mars is a significant moment in the history of the lab." Like other rovers on deep-space missions, Perseverance's traveling power on Mars comes from thermoelectric generators that create electricity from heat generated from the decay of plutonium-238 in the form of oxide ceramic pellets. Pu-238 produces heat as it decays, and the rover's multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator converts that heat into electricity to charge the lithium-ion batteries that move the rover and power the instruments it will use on the surface of the Red Planet. Pu-238 is ideal for deep-space travel because of its long half-life of nearly 88 years, but it has been in short supply.