Space Plutonium: US Once Again Producing Fuel for Deep-Space Missions
Friday, January 1, 2016 - 10:31
in Astronomy & Space
Fifty grams of plutonium-238 — the stuff that powers many deep-space missions, such as the New Horizons mission to Pluto — was produced at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee. It's the first batch made in the United States since 1988.