The Russian government has announced the allocation of 500 million roubles (US$17 million) in 2010 to design a megawatt class nuclear-electric propulsion system for rocket engines and spacecraft for travel into space. The spacecraft, powered only by nuclear energy, is intended to make it possible to reach Mars. This would be the first nuclear-powered spacecraft capable of interplanetary flight, though not the first use of nuclear power in space exploration. Russia has more experience than any other country in developing nuclear power reactors in space, having launched over thirty spacecraft with small-capacity nuclear propulsion in the 1970s and 1980s.

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It is necessary to develop highly efficient, non-chemical means of rocket propulsion to make travel to distant planets possible. A key problem in distant space travel is the low efficiency of today's chemical rockets, which expel reaction mass (create thrust) with relatively low energy. Also, the enormous quantity of chemical fuel required limits the payload a rocket can carry, especially when the rocket has to return to earth from such a distant destination as Mars. The Russians will explore the use of nuclear energy to expel reaction mass more efficiently.

Another option could be to use megawatt class nuclear space power systems (MCNSPS) to power a kind of plasma or ion rocket like the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMIR) now being developed for NASA. These rockets turn Argon reaction mass into super-heated plasma and blast it out of the rocket nozzle at tremendous speed.

However, the amount of money announced is so small that nothing more than a draft design could be expected by the target date of 2012. After that, more funds will be needed to develop the design to production by 2018.

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