The Reactor Stays Off Until Orbit: NASA's SR-1 Freedom
NASA's Space Reactor-1 (SR-1) Freedom is billed as humanity's first fission-powered spacecraft to travel outside Earth's orbit. Launching in late 2028, it is to deliver the SkyFall science mission — three Mars helicopters evolved from the Ingenuity design — to collect scientific data, demonstrate exploration zones and identify potential water sources.
Announced during NASA's 'Ignition' event, the mission will demonstrate nuclear electric propulsion in deep space, and work is under way on its key element, the nuclear power module. The reactor portion will stay inactive until the spacecraft leaves Earth orbit.
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The propulsion arrives in two hops: Sierra Lobo Inc. will supply the power module's closed Brayton cycle system, which converts thermal energy from the fission reactor into the electrical power the nuclear electric propulsion demonstration needs. Heat first, thrust second.
Elegant, but this flight is a demonstration, and the technology NASA keeps pointing at lives closer to home: next-generation fission-powered systems designed to keep a Moon Base operating through periods of darkness and in places where solar power alone isn't sufficient. Mars is the audition; the Moon may be the job.