AAAS Space: Science & Technology Volume 2021, Article ID 5245136, 15 pages https://doi.org/10.34133/2021/5245136 Review Article Application Prospect of Fission-Powered Spacecraft in Solar System Exploration Missions Y. Xia,1,2 J. Li,1 R. Zhai,1 J. Wang,1,2 B. Lin,1 and Q. Zhou3 1Beijing Institute of Spacecraft Environment Engineering, Beijing, China 2Science and Technology on Reliability and Environmental Engineering Laboratory, Beijing, China 3Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology of Tsinghua University, The Key Laboratory of Advanced Reactor Engineering and Safety, Ministry of Education, Beijing, China Correspondence should be addressed to Q. Zhou;
[email protected] Received 9 June 2020; Accepted 29 July 2020; Published 26 February 2021 Copyright © 2021 Y. Xia et al. Exclusive Licensee Beijing Institute of Technology Press. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0). Fission power is a promising technology, and it has been proposed for several future space uses. It is being considered for high- power missions whose goal is to explore the solar system and even beyond. Space fission power has made great progress when NASA’s 1 kWe Kilowatt Reactor Using Stirling TechnologY (KRUSTY) prototype completed a full power scale nuclear test in 2018. Its success stimulated a new round of research competition among the major space countries. This article reviews the development of the Kilopower reactor and the KRUSTY system design. It summarizes the current missions that fission reactors are being considered as a power and/or propulsion source. These projects include visiting Jupiter and Saturn systems, Chiron, and Kuiper belt object; Neptune exploration missions; and lunar and Mars surface base missions.