![Sphere that has the top right fourth removed (exposed) Colors from left are orange, dark blue with orange dots, light blue with horizontal lines, then black. Inside the exposure is green and black with boxes.](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_square_large/public/2024-06/slicer.jpg?h=56311bf6&itok=bCZz09pJ)
Updated software improves slicing for large-format 3D printing
Radioactive isotopes power some of NASA’s best-known spacecraft. But predicting how radiation emitted from these isotopes might affect nearby materials is tricky
After its long journey to Mars beginning this summer, NASA’s Perseverance rover will be powered across the planet’s surface in part by plutonium produced at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Scientists at the Department of Energy Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL have their eyes on the prize: the Transformational Challenge Reactor, or TCR, a microreactor built using 3D printing and other new approaches that will be up and running by 2023.