Specialists of the Arsenal design Bureau, which is engaged in research on the creation of promising spacecraft for Roscosmos, propose to supply the future Russian base on Mars with a nuclear power plant. This was reported on Saturday, July 10, by RIA Novosti with reference to the materials of the enterprise available to the agency.
The Martian nuclear power plant can be used to supply the infrastructure of the future base with electricity, and it is proposed to use technologies developed for a nuclear space tug as the reactor itself.
Experts plan to send the nuclear power plant to the orbit of the Red Planet as part of the Zeus nuclear tug, and then drop it to the surface by parachute.
According to Arsenal, the Zeus nuclear tug will allow organizing "a high-speed channel for transmitting information to Earth from the surface of Mars and spacecraft orbiting Mars."
The development of a megawatt-class nuclear power plant started in 2010, it is being conducted by the Keldysh Center, initially the completion of the installation was planned for 2015, and the first flight of the tugboat was planned for 2018, the dates were shifted several times.
In 2019, a mock-up of a tugboat was presented for the first time at the MAKS International Aerospace Salon, and a three — dimensional graphic of its work in space was presented at the Army 2020 Forum. It was called "Zeus".
In January 2020, there were plans to launch a space nuclear tug into orbit for flight tests in 2030. It was reported that the nuclear tug will be designed for flights to the Moon and planets of the Solar system.
It was also noted that the state corporation Roscosmos has signed a contract with the Avangard Design Bureau for the development of an advance project of the Nucleon complex with a nuclear power plant, the order should be completed by November 15, 2022.
