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Dr. Alan Stern, NASA lead scientist for the upcoming mission to Pluto, speaks with Hillcrest High School students on April 18. Stern visited INL to learn more about the radioisotope thermal generators used to power America's distant space missions. While here, he took the opportunity to share his enthusiasm for science with area students in a presentation. Video of Dr. Stern

Lead scientist for NASA Pluto mission visits INL space battery facility at MFC

NASA has chosen the Atlas V rocket as the launch vehicle for the New Horizons mission. (NASA photo)

In January 2006, NASA expects to launch a spacecraft, New Horizons, on a mission to study the ninth planet, Pluto, and its moon, Charon.

The radioisotope thermal generator (INL photo)

On April 18, Dr. Alan Stern, lead scientist for New Horizons, toured the Idaho National Laboratory facility where the nuclear space battery to run the spacecraft instrumentation during the nine-year flight will be assembled.

The Space Security Power System Facility is a new INL facility built solely to assembly radioisotope thermoelectric generators (nuclear space batteries) for NASA space missions and other United States government programs that require remote power sources.

Stern is director of the Southwest Research Institute's Department of Space Studies in Boulder, Colo., which has the contract to build the New Horizons spacecraft that will be launched on an Atlas rocket.

The launch window currently is January through mid-February 2006. The spacecraft fly-by of Pluto will occur in summer of 2015.

INL will deliver the key element of the spacecraft -- the nuclear battery -- to NASA this fall. Stern explained the space battery is critical because it will provide electrical power to run the various instruments on the spacecraft and to provide heat to warm instruments.

As New Horizons travels to Pluto 3 billion miles away, the spacecraft will be too far from the sun to convert its energy into electricity.

A nuclear space battery is the only current technology for creating electricity to power instruments on deep space missions.

During Stern's visit, he made presentations about the program to INL staff working at the space battery facility, an audience at the Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls, and nearly 400 high school science students and middle school pupils.