b'Space Nuclear Power & Curiosity Mars RoverIsotope TechnologiesNew HorizonsCuriosity Rover launched for Mars in 2011 and landed in 2012.This nuclear-powered robotic car is currently still exploring the red planets Gale crater. Its main job is to find out if Mars could ever have supported life.For more than 50 years, RTGs have safely powered 27 U.S. space missions at the moon and to some planets in our solar system. NEW HORIZONS These missions use the decaying heat of plutonium-238 to power instruments that RTG cant be powered in other ways.New Horizons is the first spacecraft to go to Pluto.Launched in 2006, and powered In deep space, its 250 million miles to the nearest gas station and awith an RTG, it flew by in 2015 rocket flight to Mars can take 300 days. Thats why INL helpedand took photographs and assemble and test the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG)measurements and transmitted that can generate power for decades! A radioactive chemicalthem back to Earth. This space material called plutonium-238 gives off heat as it decays. Theseprobe set the record for the fastest generators turn the heat into electricity that powers spacecraft to theman-made object ever launched.limits of our solar system. RTGs are assembled at MFC andIn 2026, Dragonfly, an incredibly transported to Kennedy Space Center where INL staff provide supportadvanced space drone powered by an RTG, from the spacecrafts launch to infinity and beyond! will launch for Saturns moon, Titan.16 17'