Here on Earth, the ability to generate electricity is something we take for granted. We can count on the sun to illuminate solar panels, and the movement of air and water to spin turbines. //

Since 2015, NASA and the United States Department of Energy have been working on the Kilopower project, which aims to develop a small, lightweight, and extremely reliable nuclear reactor that they believe will fulfill this critical role in future off-world exploration. Following a series of highly successful test runs on the prototype hardware in 2017 and 2018, the team believes the miniaturized power plant could be ready for a test flight as early as 2022. Once fully operational, this nearly complete re-imagining of the classic thermal reactor could usher in a whole new era of space exploration. //

it’s more like an evolved version of the radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) which NASA has used to power everything from the Voyager missions to the Curiosity rover. There’s no dangerous high pressure steam, finicky turbines to spin, or coolant pumps to fail. Thermal energy is passively carried away from the reactor core using sodium-filled heat pipes, which lead to the “hot” side of a Stirling engine array. With a large deployable radiator on the other side, the Stirling engines would use the temperature differential to produce reciprocal motion that can drive a small generator.

The Kilopower has been designed as a self-regulating system where everything happens automatically and without the need for external control. There would naturally be sensors for basic diagnostics, for example checking temperatures at key points in the system, the RPMs of the Stirling engines, and the output of the generators. But outside of monitoring for these possible signs of trouble, the human crew could largely ignore the Kilopower and go about their mission.