A piece of UAH’s technology inside their Propulsion Research Center.
As NASA prepares for future Artemis missions to the moon, researchers at the University of Alabama in Huntsville are helping study technology they believe could play a major role in sending humans to Mars.
UAH researchers are working with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to study nuclear propulsion systems capable of dramatically reducing travel times for future deep-space missions.
Dr. Dale Thomas, an eminent scholar in systems engineering at UAH, said nuclear propulsion could allow spacecraft to reach Mars significantly faster than traditional chemical rockets.
“The bottom line is with nuclear, either thermal or electric, you’re able to achieve the necessary delta v faster,” Thomas said. “So you can fly trajectories that get you to Mars faster.”
Researchers say a trip to Mars using current technology would take roughly six months. Thomas said nuclear propulsion could potentially reduce that journey to as little as two or three months.
The benefits go beyond speed.
Thomas said one of the biggest challenges facing future Mars missions is protecting astronauts from radiation exposure during long periods in deep space.
“The extent you can shorten the amount of time of that journey, you’re increasing the likelihood that the crew gets there safely and that they get back home safely as well,” Thomas said.
He said shorter missions could also reduce the chances of mechanical failures during a journey millions of miles from Earth.
“The fact is, the longer the journey, the higher the odds of something breaking or going wrong,” Thomas said. “It’s so important to shorten the mission, if we can.”
While researchers continue studying technologies for future Mars missions, Thomas said NASA’s Artemis program remains a critical step in the process.
He said Artemis missions will help NASA test the technology, operations and experience needed before humans attempt a journey to Mars.
“Many people want to write off the moon, they say we’ve been there before,” Thomas said. “Well, we’ve been to a few parts of the moon, we haven’t really explored the moon. So there’s a lot to learn just as a scientific destination, but it’s also very important from the journey to Mars standpoint.”
Thomas said most current projections place a human mission to Mars in the late 2030s.
While that timeline remains years away, he said research taking place today at UAH and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center could help determine how future astronauts make that journey.
A piece of UAH’s technology inside their Propulsion Research Center.
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