The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

[Thryleon]

Actually, I had thought similar that SolarPV was the way of the future for local space.

But just last week I read that there are a whole bunch of upcoming NASA / ESA launches that are going the in the opposite direction and reverting to nuclear batteries known as Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators(RTG). Apparently heat management (heating and cooling) is a big issue that consumes a lot of energy, which rules out SolarPV because the surface area needed exceeds the launch capability for a single vehicle on many rockets. The various Space Stations are unique because they were built in stages from multiple launches.

In the past RTGs were reserved for big projects, because they took up a lot of space, were heavily built and very expensive, but apparently the new generation of devices is lighter, smaller and cheaper and also longer lasting!

RTGs don't fail if they collect too much dust!

Some of this is being driven by the realisation that if they had been equipped with better power sources(aka Not SolarPV) many of the recent Mars missions would have lasted decades like Voyager I and II. One of the recent missions had a few failed experiments simply because the project ran out of energy budget before it had succeeded, or failed because it was consuming too much energy to get it working so they shut it down.

the mars missions all exceeded expectations and were extended.

The dust on the panel was a hindrance, but not so bad that it caused any mission to end early for the rovers.

Either way space will need a mix of tech because irrespective of what power source we go with, only the sun exists everywhere.

Even if you went nuclear initially you'd want a backup solar in case of failure.