How long do RTGs last?

[North]

I have been doing allot of deep space missions with RTGs . I have one probe that's been operating for for more then 15 years and the RTG still isn't dead or loosing power. Do they ever stop working? . Or is is it just make infinite power

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

They stop never. Forever lasting power.

[Joe8]

When radioactive isotopes decay in KSP, producing heat for power, they don't actually lose mass/resources, and they last infinitely, so you're good.

[Random Tank]

Yeah, in KSP they're infinite.

They aren't in real life though; its life depends on the fuel, and its half-life really. I know a lot of RTG's used a type of Plutonium, which has a half life of about 80-90 years... but some other fuels were shorter, maybe 40 years

That doesn' mean it lasts 40 years though, it just means in 40 years it will have halved in power, and will continue to half every 40 years

[Tex]

The RTG aboard the LM Aquarius (on Apollo 13, which was jettisoned and burned up over Earth) also re-entered and survived as per its design. It is not releasing any of its radioactive core, but will still be active for a few thousand years.

[NecroBones]

Yeah, in KSP they're infinite.

They aren't in real life though; its life depends on the fuel, and its half-life really. I know a lot of RTG's used a type of Plutonium, which has a half life of about 80-90 years... but some other fuels were shorter, maybe 40 years

That doesn' mean it lasts 40 years though, it just means in 40 years it will have halved in power, and will continue to half every 40 years

Right, the plutonium isotope has a half-life around 87 years or so. But the thermocouples also degrade over time. So the life expectancy is a little shorter. As an example, on the Voyager probes, the half-life of the isotope would indicate that they should have about 75% of the output they started with, but it's dropped down to around 60% roughly.

[KerbMav]

From time to time I thought about adding a resource to RTGs - but I would have to add TACLS or similar to account for the background usage of it - so I scrapped it because my saves never run 50 years anyway.

[Random Tank]

Right, the plutonium isotope has a half-life around 87 years or so. But the thermocouples also degrade over time. So the life expectancy is a little shorter. As an example, on the Voyager probes, the half-life of the isotope would indicate that they should have about 75% of the output they started with, but it's dropped down to around 60% roughly.

Ahhh right, thanks for clearing that up

[Starstrider42]

Right, the plutonium isotope has a half-life around 87 years or so.

So if we apply the same scaling that's used for the rest of KSP, Blutonium would have a half-life of 28 years? Still not short enough to be relevant, I guess. So much for that mod idea.