NASA's portable nuclear reactor could power missions to Mars
Washington, May 3: NASA has said that it successfully demonstrated a new nuclear reactor power system that could enable crewed missions to the Moon, Mars and destinations beyond.
NASA announced the results of the demonstration, called the Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) experiment on Wednesday at its Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
The Kilopower experiment was conducted at the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration's Nevada National Security Site from November 2017 through March.
Such a demonstration could pave the way for future Kilopower systems that power human outposts on the Moon and Mars, NASA said in a statement.
"Safe, efficient and plentiful energy will be the key to future robotic and human exploration," said Jim Reuter of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington.
"I expect the Kilopower project to be an essential part of lunar and Mars power architectures as they evolve," Reuter said.
Kilopower is a small, lightweight fission power system capable of providing up to 10 kilowatts of electrical power - enough to run several average households - continuously for at least 10 years.
Four Kilopower units would provide enough power to establish an outpost.
The pioneering power system is ideal for the Moon, where power generation from sunlight is difficult because lunar nights are equivalent to 14 days on Earth, said Marc Gibson, lead Kilopower engineer at Glenn.
"Kilopower gives us the ability to do much higher power missions, and to explore the shadowed craters of the Moon," said Gibson.
"When we start sending astronauts for long stays on the Moon and to other planets, that's going to require a new class of power that we've never needed before."
The prototype power system uses a solid, cast uranium-235 reactor core, about the size of a paper towel roll.
Passive sodium heat pipes transfer reactor heat to high-efficiency Stirling engines, which convert the heat to electricity.
The purpose of the recent experiment in Nevada was twofold: to demonstrate that the system can create electricity with fission power, and to show the system is stable and safe no matter what environment it encounters, said David Poston of National Nuclear Security Administration's Los Alamos National Laboratory.
"We threw everything we could at this reactor, in terms of nominal and off-normal operating scenarios and KRUSTY passed with flying colours," said Poston.
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None of Adani portfolio companies subject to any legal case: Group CFO on promoter indictment in US
New Delhi, Nov 23: None of Adani group portfolio companies, comprising 11 listed firms, have been accused of any wrongdoing, conglomerate's CFO Jugeshinder Robbie Singh said on founder and chairman Gautam Adani's indictment on bribery charges in the US.
In a post on X, Singh said the group would make a detailed comment on the US indictment once it gets counsel approvals.
Adani and seven other defendants, including his nephew Sagar Adani, allegedly agreed to pay about USD 265 million in bribes to Indian government officials between approximately 2020 and 2024 to obtain lucrative solar energy supply contracts on terms that were expected to yield USD 2 billion of profit over 20 years, according to an indictment unsealed in a New York court on Wednesday.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of the US has also charged Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani, executives of Adani Green Energy Ltd and Cyril Cabanes, an executive of Azure Power Global, for "conduct arising out of a massive bribery scheme".
"There is a lot of news and reports that will try to pick unrelated items and create a headline. My humble request is that we will respond in the fullness of time once we review in detail the matter as presented in the legal filing," Singh said.
He hastened to add that no court has ruled on the indictment, and as outlined by lawyers of the US Department of Justice, these are "allegations and the accused have a presumption of innocence".
The CFO, who was the first line of defence when US short-seller Hindenburg Research had accused the ports-to-power conglomerate of fraud in January 2023, said the group became aware of the "specificity" of the US indictment against founder and chairman Gautam Adani two days ago.
"We were aware that something is afoot (and in February 2024 144a offering circular in Risk Factors we disclosed as such. This was the first public issuance of any of our portfolio companies or their subsidiaries or joint venture companies after our annual results of 31st March 2023)," he said.
He, however, did not state what the company had disclosed in February 2024.
Adani Group, he said, has a portfolio of 11 public companies and "none are subject to indictment (i.e. defendants in any legal proceedings in the recent DOJ lawyer filings to a court in NYC)".
"None of the issuers (i.e. companies in our portfolio or specific issuers that are subsidiaries of the public companies) are accused of any wrongdoing in the said legal filing," he said.
The indictment "relates to one contract of Adani Green, which is roughly 10 per cent of overall business of Adani Green (there is a lot more precise and comprehensive detail of this which we will elaborate in an appropriate forum)," he said.
The statement comes two days after Gautam Adani was charged by US prosecutors over his role in an alleged years-long scheme to pay USD 265 million (about RS 2,200 crore) bribes to Indian officials to secure solar energy contracts. The conglomerate has denied the allegations, calling them baseless, and announced plans to seek legal recourse.
The Adani Family has 11 listed entities on the Indian stock exchanges - flagship incubator Adani Enterprises Ltd, electricity producer Adani Power Ltd, ports company Adani Ports & SEZ, power transmission firm Adani Energy Solutions Limited, renewable arm Adani Green Energy Ltd (AGEL), city gas distributor Adani Total Gas Ltd, commodities firm Adani Wilmar Ltd, media firm New Delhi Television Ltd and cement companies Ambuja Cements Limited, ACC Ltd, and Sanghi Industries Ltd.
"There is a lot of news and reports that will try to pick unrelated items and create a headline. My humble request is that we will respond in the fullness of time once we review in detail the matter as presented in the legal filing (Please note that no court has ruled on this and as outlined by lawyers of DOJ these are 'allegations and accused have a presumption of innocence'). We will make a more detailed comment once we get counsel approvals to discuss what we can in public on a matter that is sub-judice," he added.
