Are Plutonium power sources in use now(RSG)

NASA is quite interested in using these type sources in space exploration. Or so they say.

gltrs.grc.nasa.gov...

How safe are these systems? You be the judge.

www.inl.gov...

I have reason to believe such systems are already deployed. Maybe in satellites above the earth now..

english.pravda.ru...

I have reason to believe such systems are in use by a secret space program with bases on the moon and mars.

Looks like a similar system is planned for 2009 Mars mission
www.usatoday.com...

Article mentions >> "The biggest advantage to having large amounts of power is that you can go from passive instruments" such as cameras and spectrographs "to active instruments" like ice-penetrating radar, Crocker said.

"More power also translates into more bandwidth, so we can expect to get larger amounts of data back."

NASA is currently using RTGs on the Cassini orbiter - a spacecraft orbiting Saturn - and in the New Horizons probe currently in transit to Pluto, the Kuiper belt, and beyond. NASA has used RTGs in the past for the Galileo probe to Jupiter, both Voyager missions, in the Viking Mars landers, and in science packages left behind by Apollo missions to the moon, to name a few.

The systems are relatively safe. The science package carried by Apollo 13's lunar module never made it to the moon due to the problems with that mission and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere with the Aquarius lunar module. It currently rests at the bottom of the South Pacific Ocean; no release of radiation has ever been reported.

RTGs are scheduled to be used in NASA's 2009 Mars Science Laboratory. The article you cited from USA Today is from 2004, however, and some of the other projects mentions - the JIMO mission, for instance - have been cut due to funding issues and are no longer planned.

As far as the supposed "crash" of a "KH-13" in Peru, do you have a more reliable source for that than Pravda? I looked on the web for one and came up empty, and am inclined to dismiss it as it was not reported in any publication more reputable than Pravda.

I have reason to believe such systems are in use by a secret space program with bases on the moon and mars.

And what is this reason?

I worked in defence industry on an unclassified project which was part of a larger highly classified project. There may have only been a couple at our facility on that project that actually knew anything of the larger project. From two others familiar with the project I heard it was going to Mars..This was 2005. If it didn't go to Mars. I just interpreted the first mention of Mars as a joke..Until I heard it again. Then I started thinking of some of the specifications and aspects of the design.