The Zeus nuclear tug being created in Russia will be able to reach medium space. This was announced at the Eastern Economic Forum by the head of Rosatom, Alexey Likhachev.
There is such a project as Zeus - a tractor or a powerful engine. Maybe not quite distant, but it will definitely be able to reach medium space.
Work on creating a transport and energy module (TEM) based on a megawatt-class nuclear power propulsion unit has been underway in Russia for more than ten years. It will become the basis of a space tug. In 2020, it was named Zeus at the initiative of the then head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin.
The TEM is based on a long frame, thanks to which the nuclear fuel will be separated as much as possible from the main compartment with equipment and people. The engine is a compact nuclear reactor, a waste heat collection system, a system for converting thermal energy into electrical energy, main ion engines with a power of up to several tens of kilowatts and a specific impulse of over seven thousand seconds.
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