Nucleon (nuclear space tug)

2020: Development of a nuclear tug for 4.2 billion rubles

On October 12, 2020, it became known about the development by Roscosmos of a nuclear tug for 4.2 billion rubles. According to materials on the public procurement website, in 2020 100 million rubles were allocated for the implementation of the Nuclon project, in 2021 - 900 million rubles, in 2022 - 1.24 billion rubles, for subsequent years - 1.9 billion rubles.

As part of the contract, a space complex will be created with a transport and energy module based on a nuclear power plant as part of the development work of Nucleon. The tug should help in flights to other planets of the solar system.

Earlier, the executive director of Roscosmos for promising programs and science, Alexander Bloshenko, in a conversation with TASS, said that in 2030, Nuclon should go on a long flight with an end point on one of Jupiter's satellites.

We want to fly to the Moon, and in the same mission after the Moon to fly through Venus with the delivery of a satellite to obtain scientific data, and the further transit of this device towards the satellites of Jupiter also with a certain payload, "said Bloshenko.

In July 2020, the head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said that for flights to other planets of the Russian solar system, ion engines must be created.

He noted that such projects are very difficult, but they will have to be implemented. Speaking about the timing of the creation of nuclear power plants for spacecraft, Rogozin said that we are talking about "a very distant future."

Earlier it became known that within the framework of the state program "Space Activity of Russia for 2013-2020," design documentation was developed, a number of components of the layout of the ground prototype of the transport and energy module (TEM) based on a megawatt-class nuclear power plant ("nuclear tug") were manufactured and passed autonomous tests^[1]

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