Space Plutonium: US Once Again Producing Fuel for Deep-Space Missions

For the first time in 30 years, the United States produced an isotope of plutonium that powers NASA's deep-space missions. A total of 50 grams of plutonium-238 was produced at the Department of Energy (DOE)'s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, in the first end-to-end demonstration of the material's production in the United States since the late 1980s. "Once we automate and scale up the process, the nation will have long-range capability to produce radioisotope power systems such