Will a nuclear power plant be built on the Moon? These are joint plans of Russia and China

Yuri Borisov, former deputy defense minister and now head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, said that given the fact that Russia and China worked together on the lunar program, Moscow could contribute its specialized knowledge on “space nuclear energy” to this project. .

Nuclear power plant on the Moon

— Today we are seriously considering a project to deliver and install a power plant on the lunar surface, sometime at the turn of 2033-2035, together with our Chinese colleagues. – said Yuri Borisov, quoted by the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

According to a former Russian deputy defense minister, the implementation of such a project may one day allow settlement on the Moon. In any case, it will be absolutely necessary for this.

– Solar panels will not be able to provide enough electricity to power future lunar settlements, while nuclear power can do so – said the head of the Roscosmos space agency.

The head of Roscosmos added that the joint plans of Russia and China are a very serious challenge that will have to be implemented “in automatic mode”, i.e. without the presence of people.

Russia is building a nuclear-powered space tug

Yuri Borisov also mentioned Russian plans to build a nuclear-powered spacecraft. His statement shows that all technical issues regarding the project have already been resolved, and scientists only need to find a method of cooling the nuclear reactor.

– We are indeed working on a space tug. It is a huge structure that, thanks to a nuclear reactor and powerful turbines, would be able to transport large payloads from one orbit to another, collect space debris and find many other applications. – said Borisov.