Oak Ridge fuel powering NASA Rover on Mars trek
Oak Ridge fuel powering NASA Rover on Mars trek The Oak Ridger The world will be watching as NASA’s Perseverance Rover makes its final descent into Jezero Crater on the surface of Mars Thursday — powered by Oak Ridge fuel. Mars 2020 is the first NASA mission that uses plutonium-238 produced at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Pu-238 — encased in iridium-alloy cladding and insulated by carbon-bonded carbon fiber — is at the heart of the general purpose heat source module that fuels Perseverance’s multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator. ORNL c...
Source: oakridger.com