yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

A Nuclear-Powered Space Mission | Mission Saturn


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

NARRATOR: Way out into space, the sun's energy-giving rays grow weaker. Solar panels would be little use to Cassini passing distant planets. It needs a far longer lasting source of power: the radioactive power of plutonium-238. In Idaho Falls, behind high level security, the United States Department of Energy harnesses this prized source. The Cassini mission required more nuclear power than any other mission in NASA's history.

NARRATOR: Three heavily shielded thermo-electric generators transformed the heat of radioactive decay into electrical power. They hold iridium-coated plutonium pellets, lasting for decades, but potentially deadly to life. That energy source is what keeps Cassini's cameras taking pictures and powers its radio messages back to Earth. It runs all the devices on the spacecraft, plus the residual heat is funneled into the spacecraft, and it keeps all the instruments warm and in their proper operating range.

NARRATOR: But how do you stay warm when outside temperatures are dropping to minus 364 degrees Fahrenheit? You wrap up in a blanket. In this room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, there is over $1 million worth of them.

MARK DURAN: This is the fabric we use to shield Cassini and protect it against the environmental fluxes of space.

NARRATOR: More than 20 layers of specialized fabric protect Cassini. Not real gold, but colored, aluminized materials. $60,000 worth. Cassini was one of the most challenging spacecrafts to even undertake. It was menacing to think that we had to develop shielding for this entire spacecraft.

NARRATOR: It's taken decades of dreaming, designing, building, and testing. Now, the mission is ready to go.

More Articles

View All
Can Bitcoin Hit 100K? | Kitco Interview
There’s a lot of misinformation about the mining in Bitcoin. They are not going to buy Bitcoin until this ESG issue is resolved, period. Let me be very blunt about this: I would say right now less than one percent of global institutions and sovereign fund…
Meet Sean, a creator of AP Physics on Khan Academy | AP Physics 1 | Khan Academy
I have taught AP Physics classes for the last seven years: AP Physics 1, AP Physics B back in the day, and AP Physics C now. I try to make my lessons personable, relate to the student, and offer them real-life examples where things happen. But I also focu…
Bank balance sheets and fractional reserve banking | APⓇ Macroeconomics | Khan Academy
In this video, we’re going to talk about balance sheets, and in particular, balance sheets for banks and a fractional reserve lending system. Now, it’s not just banks that have balance sheets; all corporations have a balance sheet. You can even have your …
What is total compensation? | Employment | Financial Literacy | Khan Academy
Let’s say that you’ve just gotten these two job offers, and your goal is to figure out which one gives you the most total compensation. So pause this video and see if you can figure out the total compensation for Job A and for Job B, and then of course we…
Trig limit using pythagorean identity | Limits and continuity | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy
Let’s see if we can find the limit as theta approaches 0 of ( \frac{1 - \cos(\theta)}{2 \sin^2(\theta)} ). And like always, pause the video and see if you could work through this. Alright, well our first temptation is to say, well, this is going to be th…
15 Things That Instantly Lower Status
You know, some of the things that you do are the adult version of giving somebody else the ick. Fortunately for you though, we’re here to help make sure that doesn’t happen. Some of these are strategic while others are just about being a basic human being…