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Irene Klotz
April 02, 2026
The U.S. has not flown a nuclear reactor in space since 1965, but that could change with the SR-1 Freedom mission. Credit: NASA Concept
As part of its reboot of the Artemis exploration campaign, NASA plans to demonstrate a nuclear fission reactor for propulsion beyond Earth orbit, a mission that includes a flyby of Mars to dispatch a trio of Ingenuity-class heli-copters to scout for subsurface ice. NASA aims to launch the Space…
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