Ideas for new NASA mission can now include spacecraft powered by plutonium

NASA is giving scientists more choices for how to power their future spacecraft to explore the Solar System. Researchers proposing spacecraft ideas for NASA’s Discovery program — an initiative to develop deep-space missions that usually cost less than half a billion dollars — will be allowed to incorporate a special kind of radioactive battery in the designs for their vehicles. And that could potentially allow these missions to get more science done and go deeper into space.
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