As India’s space programme gets into its second phase, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is looking to harness nuclear energy to propel its future rockets which will explore distant planets and areas beyond the solar system.

While the Chandrayan-1 mission to moon, and the likely mission to Mars, can be done by using conventional fuel, ISRO is realising that going beyond that would require developing nuclear technology to propel the rockets.

Though such an endeavour in outer space is not going to happen in the near future, ISRO wants to start early and be ready with the technology in time.

“It would not be required before, say 2030 or even beyond that. But yes, ultimately we have to be looking at that,” ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair told The Indian Express.

The technology to propel these rockets would not be very different to what is used in nuclear power plants but the big challenge would be to package this into a small unit and make it completely safe.

Nuclear energy is being seen as the most viable options when undertaking exploration of very distant space and areas outside the solar system because of its ability to pack in a huge amount of energy into small volumes. As the spacecraft goes further and further away from the sun, the option of using solar energy is also not available.

Both the US and Russia have demonstrated the use of nuclear fuel in rockets and have used it for limited purposes in the past. But as of now nuclear energy is not a common fuel used in spacecraft.

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