Early on Monday morning (1:31AM Eastern Daylight Time), after having traveled 352 million miles, NASA's robotic rover Curiosity is scheduled to touch down inside the Gale Crater on the surface of Mars. Soon after, it will begin looking for clues about possible early forms of Martian life.
On the road to achieving net-zero by midcentury, low- or no-carbon energy sources that slash carbon dioxide emissions are critical weapons. Nevertheless, the role of nuclear energy—the...
Nuclear power’s moonshot: Three teams have one year to design a lunar power reactor
Three teams have been picked to design a fission surface power system that NASA could deploy on the moon by the end of the decade, NASA and Idaho National Laboratory announced today. A fission...
Defense agency invests in fusion- and radioisotope-powered space propulsion
The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), a Department of Defense organization focused on swiftly putting commercial technology to use in the U.S. military, has awarded contracts for two nuclear...
DOD seeks in-space demo of nuclear rocket engine in FY 2026
The Department of Defense wants to deploy spacecraft in cislunar space—the area between Earth and the moon’s orbit—with thrust and agility that only nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) can...
From terrestrial to celestial: NETS connects nuclear professionals with space missions
Connecting nuclear engineers and scientists with space exploration missions has been a focus of the American Nuclear Society’s Aerospace Nuclear Science and Technology Division since its...
Join ANS for the 2022 NETS conference
Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS-2022) will be held May 8–12 in Cleveland, Ohio.Register now. ANS members are encouraged to register for the conference and reserve their...
Purdue University mass-alpha spectroscopy research draws notice
Research into the high-resolution detection of plutonium mixtures by Purdue University professor Rusi Taleyarkhan and his team was featured on the cover of the February issue of the Journal of...
Plutonium transported from IAEA laboratory to Oak Ridge
Plutonium from an International Atomic Energy Agency laboratory in Austria has been removed to the United States, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration...
Universities study liquid-fueled nuclear thermal propulsion concept for NASA
With three commercial teams under contract to produce reactor designs for nuclear thermal propulsion rockets that would use solid high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel to heat hydrogen...
Focus is on Virginia Commonwealth University
The spotlight shines on Virginia Commonwealth University during a virtual event taking place tomorrow, March 3, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. EST. The ANS Young Members Group is hosting the...
