Russia plans to build a spacecraft with a nuclear electric propulsion unit

The draft of the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 laid the work to create a flight model of a spacecraft with a nuclear power plant (NPP), writes Izvestia. The demonstration version of such a device should be ready for testing in 2025. According to experts, spacecraft from the nuclear power plant are needed for expeditions to deep space.

Indeed, planning reliable interplanetary expedition is practically impossible without reliable and powerful energy sources. If for orbital spacecraft there is enough energy obtained using solar batteries, then for interplanetary spacecraft (we are no longer talking about probes, but about much larger systems), we need a lot more energy.

The project itself is not something new - back in 2010, the Presidential Commission on Modernization and Technological Development of the Economy approved the project “Creating a transport and energy module based on a megawatt-class nuclear power plant.” About 17 billion rubles were allocated from the federal budget for this topic.
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And work is underway. “All work on the creation of a nuclear power plant is proceeding in accordance with the planned deadlines. We can say with a great deal of confidence that the work will be commissioned on the date provided for by the target program. Recently, within the framework of the project, two important stages have been completed: a unique design of a fuel element has been created, ensuring operability under conditions of high temperatures, large temperature gradients, and high-dose irradiation. Also successfully completed technological testing of the reactor vessel of the future space unit. As part of these tests, the hull was subjected to overpressure and 3D measurements were made in the zones of the base metal, the circumferential welded joint and the conical junction, ”says the project manager of the communications department of the Rosatom State Corporation Andrei Ivanov.

How does a NPS work? Wikipedia tells us the following : “A nuclear power plant is sometimes confused with a nuclear rocket engine, which is not entirely correct, since a nuclear reactor in a nuclear power plant is used only to generate electricity. It, in turn, is used to start and power up an electric rocket engine (ERE), and also provides power to the onboard systems of the spacecraft. A nuclear power plant consists of three main devices: a reactor with a working body and auxiliary devices (heat exchanger-heat exchanger and a turbo-generator-compressor), an electric propulsion system, and a refrigerator-emitter. The principle of operation of the ion engine is as follows. In the gas-discharge chamber using anodes and the cathode block, located in a magnetic field, a rarefied plasma is created. From it, the ions of the working medium, xenon or other substance are “pulled out” by the emission electrode and are accelerated in the gap between it and the accelerating electrode. The advantages of a nuclear power plant are the possibility of a 10-year operation, a large interval between repairs, and a long operating time on one switch. From a physical point of view, a nuclear power plant is a compact, fast-gas, gas-cooled reactor. ”

Similar projects were planned to be implemented by the USSR and the USA, but after the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it was decided to close all the work on such projects. In May 1988, the Federation of American Scientists and the Committee of Soviet Scientists for Peace against Nuclear Threat declared the need to ban the use of nuclear energy in space.

Now, as far as can be judged, this topic has again become relevant.