Photo: SCIEPRO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Science Photo Library / Getty Images
NASA has announced a bold new Mars mission that will use nuclear electric propulsion for the first time in deep space history, pairing cutting-edge technology with a fleet of small helicopters set to scout the Red Planet.
NASA revealed on Tuesday (March 24) that it will develop the Skyfall mission for a December 2028 launch. The mission will travel to Mars aboard a spacecraft called Space Reactor-1 (SR-1) Freedom, "the first nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft."
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has been a strong supporter of nuclear electric propulsion (NEP), the technology that will power the SR-1 Freedom. Unlike the radioisotope thermoelectric generators that have powered older deep-space probes like Voyager for decades, NEP works more like a nuclear power plant. It uses a fission reactor to generate electricity, which then powers highly efficient electric thrusters.
"SR-1 Freedom will establish flight-heritage nuclear hardware, set regulatory and launch precedent, and activate the industrial base for future fission power systems across propulsion, surface and long-duration missions," NASA said in a statement announcing the mission.
The SR-1 Freedom will carry three small helicopters to Mars. The choppers will be similar in design to Ingenuity, the NASA rotorcraft that made history by becoming the first helicopter ever to fly on another world. Ingenuity completed 72 flights between April 2021 and January 2024 after landing with the Perseverance rover in February 2021.
But unlike Ingenuity, which was a technology demonstrator, the Skyfall helicopters will have specific scientific goals. Steve Sinacore, the program executive for NASA's Space Reactors Office, explained the mission's objectives during a webcast briefing.
"The Skyfall helicopters will carry cameras and ground-penetrating radar to scout a future landing site, to understand the slopes and hazards for human-scale landers," Sinacore said. "They will also map and characterize the subsurface water ice to find out where the water ice deposits are, along with the size, depth and other important characteristics," he added.
The mission is seen as much bigger than just sending helicopters to Mars. NASA views NEP technology, which can operate at any distance from the sun, as a key part of its future exploration plans. That includes robotic missions to the outer solar system and even the eventual goal of sending humans to Mars.
If the mission launches on schedule, SR-1 Freedom would arrive at Mars roughly one year later, in late 2029. After deploying the Skyfall helicopters, NASA may choose to keep the spacecraft flying deeper into the solar system, according to Sinacore, though the mission's full architecture has not yet been finalized.