The quickest way to recognize how rad Earth is, is to leave it. Every time we send a spacecraft into space, we have to send it with everything it will ever need riding on its back or in its belly.

Voyages into space are among the most iconic endeavors of the 20th and 21st centuries. Spacecraft that have ventured out to this “final frontier” have relayed stunning images and enlightening ...

Radioactive materials have enormous potential as a source of energy, but some isotopes are available in such small quantities that their use as an energy source is limited. In the 1950s, scientists at ...

NASA is giving scientists more choices for how to power their future spacecraft to explore the Solar System. Researchers proposing spacecraft ideas for NASA’s Discovery program — an initiative to ...

The US government says a new robot is poised to help it create a reliable, long-term supply chain of plutonium-238, a radioactive material NASA requires to explore deep space. NASA uses Pu-238 to ...

Biweekly news and analysis from SpaceNews correspondent Andrew Jones on business, politics and technology in the Chinese space industry.. By submitting this form, you ...

SAN FRANCISCO — Despite repeated actions by U.S. lawmakers to deny funding for domestic production of plutonium-238 (Pu-238) in U.S. Energy Department budget bills, NASA has begun mapping out the ...

A shortage of the particular type of plutonium needed to power deep space probes may stall planned NASA space exploration. Some scientists insist that the U. S. must urgently restart production of ...

It appears that the U.S.'s plutonium-238 shortage is coming an end. The radioisotope is crucial for fueling long-term deep space missions, but as of 2017, a shortage was on the horizon. But ...

NASA's Cassini probe at Saturn will be destroyed on September 15. The mission is ending to prevent losing control of the robot and contaminating watery moons that might harbor alien life. A rare and ...

Science, New Series, Vol. 158, No. 3802 (Nov. 10, 1967), pp. 769-771 (3 pages) The stratospheric inventory of the plutonium-238 resulting from the disintegration of a nuclear auxiliary power generator ...

A Russian atomic scientist surrendered eight containers filled with arms-grade nuclear material to police on Tuesday after keeping it in his garage for eight years, Russian media reported. Now he ...