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It's stunning to think how well these missions have done and what we've learnt. I'd love to see new missions aimed at much greater longevity with more modern in
by davidwritesbugs 2y ago
It's stunning to think how well these missions have done and what we've learnt. I'd love to see new missions aimed at much greater longevity with more modern instruments. I wonder how long one could make the mission? 100 years? 200? Would new generators reduce the power loss to less than 4W/year, or would it just need more/much bigger ones?
- Bud 2y agoThe power loss is due to the fact that the power source is plutonium. Which decays over time. So, your lump of plutonium contains less and less plutonium over time, and thus generates less power. A more modern generator doesn't really change this basic fact; the power source would still likely be plutonium, and would have the same issue. But yes, you could send up a larger lump of plutonium so that your power budget started out larger and would remain adequate for a longer time.
- pfdietz 2y agoIIRC the output has decayed faster than that, due to degradation of the solid state generators.