NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie, made up of 62 individual images, on July 23. A rock nicknamed “Cheyava Falls,” which has features that may bear on the question of whether the Red Planet was long ago home to microscopic life, is to the left of the rover near the center of the image.

Radioisotope Power Systems

Space nuclear power to explore the deepest, dustiest, darkest, and most distant regions of our solar system and beyond.

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Active Missions

Years in Service at NASA

Active Missions

Artist's rendition of NASA's Voyager spacecraft

RPS — short for radioisotope power systems — are a type of nuclear energy technology that uses heat to produce electric power for operating spacecraft systems and science instruments. That heat is produced by the natural radioactive decay of plutonium-238.

JUly 25, 2024

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Scientists Find Intriguing Mars Rock

The six-wheeled geologist found a fascinating rock that has some indications it may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago, but further research is needed.

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JUly 25, 2024

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Scientists Find Intriguing Mars Rock

Two large rocks on the surface of Mars show have sample holes drilled in them.

Powered by RPS: Great Shots from Around the Solar System

26 Images

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Earth is a tiny pixel of white in a dusty sunbeam in this image of the vast emptiness of deep space.

Magestic Saturn and its rings are barely illuminated view of the entire planet.

Giant Jupiter is half illuminated by the Sun and its moon Io is a crescent in the foreground. A small glowing volcanic plume is erupting from Io.

A sweeping landscape gives way to hills on the colorized horizon in this artistic Mars composite image.

The image from NASA's Voyager 2 shows the Great Dark Spot and its companion bright smudge; on the west limb the fast moving bright feature called Scooter and the little dark spot are visible.

This false-color photograph is a composite of 15 images of the Moon taken through three color filters NASA Galileo solid-state imaging system during the spacecraft passage through the Earth-Moon system on December 8, 1992.

A color-enhanced image shows cloud patterns moving around a hexagon -shaped storm om Satirm.

In the early morning hours of July 8, 2015, mission scientists received this new view of Pluto -- the most detailed yet returned by New Horizons. The image was taken on July 7, when the NASA spacecraft was just under 5 million miles 8 million kilometers

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Why Radioisotope Power Systems?

01
From a Source of Heat Comes Power to Explore
RPS provide electricity and heat that can enable spacecraft to undertake scientific missions to environments beyond the capabilities of solar power, chemical batteries and fuel cells.
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02
A Critical Technology
RPS offer the key advantage of operating continuously over long-duration space missions, largely independent of changes in sunlight, temperature, charged particle radiation, or surface conditions like thick clouds or dust. Some of the excess heat produced by RPS can be used to enable spacecraft systems to operate in extremely cold environments.
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03
A Legacy of Exploration
RPS have enabled NASA's exploration of the solar system since the Apollo era of the late 1960s. Five radioisotope power systems powered missions are currently active.
Explore

The astronaut is standing on the Moon next to the landing module. He is extracting a round cylinder from a storage compartment on the side.

Radioisotope Power Across the Solar System

Space nuclear power to explore the deepest, dustiest, darkest, and most distant regions of our solar system and beyond.

NASA

The Voyagers owe their ability to operate at such great distances from the Sun to their nuclear electric power sources, which provide the electrical power they need to function.

Dr. Edward Stone (1936-2024)

Voyager Project Scientist

Featured News

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Ed Stone, Former Director of JPL, Voyager Project Scientist, Dies

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NASA Announces Winners of Power to Explore Challenge

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NASA’s Voyager Will Do More Science With New Power Strategy

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Learn More and Get Involved

Power to Explore Student Essay Challenge
The winners of NASA’s 2024 Power to Explore Student Challenge are: 9-year-old Raine Lin, 12-year-old Aadya Karthik, and 18-year-old Thomas Liu.
U.S. Department of Energy
The NASA Radioisotope Power Systems Program is a joint partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy.