NEP missions to Pluto

Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) has the potential to deliver fast trips to the distant outer planets and to be enabling for orbiter missions to Pluto, the moons of the distant outer planets, and Kuiper belt objects. This paper summarizes results of a mission study for a Pluto Flyby and a Pluto Orbiter. It was concluded that the flyby mission trip time would be about 6–10 years, depending on how lightweight the power system could be made for a given power level. The trip time was not too sensitive to whether the initial condition was earth escape or earth orbit if a larger power system could be assumed for the earth-orbit option because of the larger launch mass that could be used in that case. The trip time for the orbiter mission was projected to be about 9–14 years.